Burning Waves & The Storm of Blood
by antheunis011
Summary: Banished from the Leaf! Check. ROOT ANBU sent after you! Check. Meeting your older sibling! Check. Uzumakicentric, sometimes dark, but often light hearted with a touch of seriousness world.
1. A Fateful Meeting

**Question**: Who thinks that the latest manga is both cool and lame at the same time. I mean seriously, they named a technique **God: Nativity of a World of Trees** (Shin: Jukai Kōtan) Shin as in Shinju and Shin as Kami. Well there you go people that chapter shall give you plenty of ideas. Who wants to bet that there will be a whole Infinite Tsukuymi arc. And who will be the one to eat the fruit this time. I bet it will be Madara and then Kishi will give Naruto and Sasuke a whole new Deus Ex power-up that doesn't even make sense anymore. Although I never though that we would actually get to see Infinite Tsukuyomi in action.

**Author's note: **This fic is a BIG rewrite of ''Bloody Storm, Burning Wave'', which was originally written by PENTUFURY, and I stumbled upon it on Uzumakipedia. Now, this is my adaptation of the story, since I wanted to do it for a long time. So this is 'my' fic now, but it's also PENTUFURY's, who by the way isn't active anymore. Since the guy won't be writing anything anymore I'm doing it. Think about how technology advances today. The companies take an existing product, slap a few changes and voila, they own a new product. The difference here is that this will be heavy/ TOTAL rewrite. Really while that story was fun, it was too much like other bashing fics and too much god mode without any good action for me. I hope mine will be as good if not better than the original. This story is based on Bloody Storm Burning Waves, but that's it. The idea is out of that fic.

[PS: There won't be much action in this chapter, just becouse the focus of this chapter won't be the fight but the INTRO into the story]

**THERE ARE CORE DIFFERENCES IN THE HISTORY AND BACKGROUND OF NARUTO from the original fic. **I have come to loathe Konoha bashing, since I've came across only three decent fics that managed to incorporate that well, so I'll be doing my best to make it seem as sensible as possible.

**WARNING! **Uzumaki incest! Main Pairing (Only Pairing) OOC Naruto x Natsuko (Naruko), perhaps Kushina later.

**IMPORTANT FACT: **The distance between Sand and Leaf is not a petty three days (WTF, some continent that is), more like 4 weeks for ninja. The distance should actually take only 3 weeks, but...I duno, i always thought that deserts were harder to cross than mild forested areas.

**IMPORTANT FACT: **That cheapshot with the Kage Bunshin for training ain't working here. They can transfer memories and experiences but that's it. If you have 6 clones learn how to count up to 6, you won't learn how to count to 36. So using one clone to train will work XD.

* * *

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

**~~~~ Prologue ~~~~**

******XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

* * *

The summers in the **Hi no Kuni** (_Land of Fire_) were quite pleasant when one knew the differences between the lands that littered the two smaller continents of the Elemental Nations and their climates. For example, the temperature within this sea of greenery, of the forest that stretched as far as the eye could see and then some, never, and I mean never climbed above a certain level each year. And it was so, thus the heat was kept on the mild side of warm, not too warm, but just cold enough not to be considered hot.

It was quite enjoyable to be honest.

Every few moments you could hear the song of birds, the winged creatures chirping with their families in their nests, located somewhere within the canopies of the humongous trees. The grass danced underneath your feet, swaying from side to side leisurely as the wind blew by gently.

A lone figure passed by one of the titanic trees that made up most of the forests within the Land of Fire. These old and wizened plants were monumental. They inspired pure awe within foreigners, with heights that easily towered above 60 and 80 feet for the smallest ones.

The larger trees truly were epic.

The sound of soft humming joined with the song of birds, and it came from the lone figure who was walking through the forest holding a very famous orange book in his hands and reading it.

Just because the man didn't like the author of the Icha Icha series very much, didn't mean that he shouldn't read it. Besides, it helped with the boredom when he travelled from place to place, from a home to a home.

The man was a pretty tall when compared with most males in the world, but he didn't tower with his height above them like a giant. His height reached just up to 186 cm, placing him amongst the taller part of the people, but not amongst the tallest.

Flipping over the page, he reminiscened about his current predicament. This was the nearest he had ever been to **Konohagakure no Sato** (_Village Hidden in the Leaves_) since that day. The day that he had lost his whole family with the Kyuubi ordeal. He wasn't really all that sure why didn't he just take a detour arou-...ah right.

Right now he was on a self given mission, which was taking him all the way to the south- eastern corner of the Land of Fire, just near the border with the **Land of Noodles** (_Udon no Kuni_). This meant that he had the choice of either circling all the way arround the border of the Land of Fire, which would take him an additional two weeks even at his full speed, or he could cut through the middle of the Land of Fire and take just one week to do it at his cruising speed. If he went around he would have to pass through the **Land of Rivers** (_Kawa no Kuni_), and suffer through the mosquito season.

He was not inclined to be a meal to those flying buzzards, nor was he about to do all of that work. If all went according to plan, he would be out of the country by the end of the second week.

So the man took the option that saved him both time and money, which only issued a small risk of being ambushed by Konoha shinobi on patrol through the woods. While he would like to avoid contact with them as much as possible, he could take the chance. They didn't know him, or almost nobody did anymore and it wasn't like he cared about their lives or their petty village. He just wasn't inclined on dealing with those people, they weren't worth it. He had meet them in his travels, and came to the same conclusion as the rest of the ninja in this world have.

Konoha shinobi were often hot headed and arrogant, thinking that their clans and their twisted beliefs in the **Will of Fire **(_Hi no Ishi_), made them strong. It was even worse due to the veil of lies that they kept around them, leaving their people to believe that they were the 'strongest' village that they could fight anyone.

Weren't they just recently nearly crushed by **Oto** (_Sound_) and Suna (_Sand_), one village which wasn't even all that real besides being the few scattered Orochimaru's bases. And Suna, the weakest of the Great 5, with the smallest number and most often mediocre quality shinobi in their ranks.

Arrogant and delusional the lot of them, but like the bum sitting in the chair, writing all of this down because he had nothing else better to do said, it wasn't like the man cared about them. He didn't care about Konoha, nor Senju or Uchiha, Hyuuga or Inuzuka. Not a single villager mattered to hom, not after what they did...

He cut any and all ties with them 12 years ago, and nearly died in the process of it.

With a small smile on his lips, the man turned his head ever so slightly to his right and glanced at the base of a nearby tree. There was a small brown rabbit sitting there, it's cutish round eyes staring at him without much intelligence.

SNIFF, SNIFF

It's nose wiggled once, then twice before the animal turned around and hoped away from the man. As the man himself continued to walk he kept watching as the animal moved away with one stormy blue, cobalt eye.

He turned his sights back to his book and flipped the page with his right thumb.

The man's appearance was as it followed: He had dark red, crimson hair which was spiky and wild, sticking out here and there like a bad case of morning hair. It was a mess of crimson locks pointing at everything. Due to his exposure to Kyuubi's chakra while he was still in his mother's womb, his cheeks were decorated by three pairs of faint whiskers. Because he was born from a female jinchuriki who actually used the Kyuubi's chakra once or twice in her life, he had become a pseudo jinchuriki (_jinchūrikimodoki_) while he was still that small egg in her ovary. That damn fox and it's chakra had a presence inside of him, something he hated but couldn't do anything about. He was like the Gold & Silver brothers. Kingaku and Gingaku of the **Cloud** (_Kumo_) who had become pseudo Jinchurikis after being swallowed by the Kyuubi. They survived by eating and ingesting the flesh of the beast.

He wore a dark grey T- shirt that clung to his body closely but not tight enough to become a second skin, and an unzipped jacket with black and red colours. The black was, for the most part on the front and situated around the zipper area, while the red was for the shoulders and neck area. A mixture between dark grey and metallic blue pants followed after that and ended with simple blue ninja sandals.

Around his right leg, located on the middle od his thigh on the outer side, he had a dark blue kunai holster. Around his hips he had several beige pouches containing his equipment and slung over his left shoulder was the sheath for his simple ninjato. He may not fancy himself as a swordsman to the likes of samurai but he could wield the weapon very, very well. It was enough to get him out of any trouble and his ninjutsu usually took care of the rest, Katon and Raiton especially.

He paused mid step and leaned his head to the side, his eyes trailing towards the area where he sensed a rather powerful but erratic source of chakra fluctuating in the distance. It appeared that the owner of the signature was in the middle of a battle, judging by the rather blatant flares of chakra that he could sense right now.

The man wasn't a powerful sensor by any means, but the ''**Mind's Eye of the Kagura /**_Kagura Shindan_'' was the most powerful sensory jutsu in the world, and it was a clan technique of the Uzumaki, a Blood Limit Inheritence Kekkai Genkai jutsu. This meant that it could be learned and applied by any Uzumaki with enough effort. The man had trained with this ability to the best of his abilities, but wasn't making too much head way in the progress department with it, which was proving rather difficult to do.

The red haired man now had a choice. Should he follow the chakra signature and see what was going on or should he simply mind his own business, like he was supposed to be doing in the first place. There was no reason for him to go poking his nose in other ninja's business but then again, he was he.

The man then remembered that he was only alive to this day because someone took an interest in his own 'fight' against the Konoha Root ANBU that were sent after him to kill him.

''Damn it me and my moral views. I just know that this will turn into a mess. I just know it'' the man groaned as his curiosity won over caution like it normally did. Besides something about that chakra felt familiar to him. There was a tingle in the back of his mind, to him it felt like it was beckoning for him to come closer and approach the owner.

Any sane person would have stayed away from something like that, but he was Uzumaki fucking Naruto damnit! He was not sane by any means just like the rest of the powerful and eccentric S ranked ninja in this accursed world of conflict and war.

Taking a step forward, he put the Icha Icha Paradise into his pant pocket. Naruto then flexed his chakra, the energy vibrating in his coils as he speed up. He put a lid on the sea od chakra that were his reserves, masking it under and did his best to keep them hidden.

Pushing chakra to the soles of his feet, he jumped into the air. From there, he blasted of the man sized branch with a ninja dash, the quickest way of traveling through this forest. He ducked and weaved under and above the various branches that got in his way, only touching the wood every 60 or so paces. It took Naruto about 4 minutes of moving at his top speed to reach the chakra signature. The trip came to a stop at a desolate clearing, which in turn yielded with a front row seat to a rather strange fight.

Naruto landed on a small branch just on the edge of the green clearing and his eyes widened at the sight that he saw. When he first started approaching here, he had no doubt that he would be detected as soon as he came close, what with his monstrous reserves simply being too humongous to fully conceal. Now he wasn't so sure that they would manage to pinpoint his location out with the way chakra was being thrown around.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The first thing that had managed to catch Naruto's keen eyes was the small blonde haired girl standing in the middle of the clearing. She was very easy to spot, since she was wearing some very, very bright orange clothes that were the utter opposite of what a shinobi should wear.

Quite honestly with the way her clothes screamed 'I'm right here! Kill me!' he wouldn't be surprised if a blind man could find her. She wasn't alone, oh no she was not. She was fighting a loosing battle with 7 other shinobi, all of them nearly fully grown men.

Naruto quickly took in her appearance from the cover of the tree, well the most that he could see from his location. He couldn't see her face since she had her back turned to him. If he had to give a wild guess, he would say that she was about 12 to 13 years old and seemed to be a bit short for her age.

Again, the red headed Uzumaki guessed that she was 12 since she wore a hitai-ate on her forehead, as the knot behind her could only be used on that. So that meant that she was an official ninja, most likely a genin with her obvious lack of stealth.

She ran forwards at one of the shinobi as she let loose a few shuriken. A kunai came sailing towards her from the same man, with an explosive tag attached to it so she was forced to substitute herself with a log.

Naruto's eye twitched as he saw the perfectly cut log just before it turned to cimbers via an explosive tag. Appearing in front of the same ANBU with a simple and quick burst of speed, she tried her best to take the man head on with a rather sloppy approximation of the Konohagakure Academy taijutsu stance, the mish mash of clan taijutsu based around simplicity and adaptability for students. It was easy on the muscles, insuring that if the young shinobi did learn a different style then they wouldn't need to redo years of muscle memory.

A cookie cutter style at best when facing trained shinobi, but better than what any bandit could hope to dish out.

A fire ball came hurling her way from another ANBU from her flank, as the man she had engaged with disappeared, his body turning into a bunch of leaves as soon a she managed to pierce his skin with a kunai. She had barely enough time to roll out of the way of the flaming ball of chakra as it exploded into flames, getting her clothes singed in the process.

Seing that she was loosing, Naruto took another quick look around the area to count and spot the foes. He took in the sight of a dead 'ANBU' along with three more shinobi, which seemed to make squad one and another 4 shinobi currently fighting the girl, designation squad two for now. He wondered how did she get that man but put the thought away. By the time he was 12 he was forced to fight A rank ninja on a daily basis, so it wasn't unheard off, and the world before this peace was torn with war, he needed to adapt to combat or die.

There was just one tiny problem with what Naruto saw here, besides the rather obvious overkill of using two entire ANBU units to kill a simple kid. These black ops wore blank maks, with the Kanji character for 'ne' (root) on the top of them. The ANBU were all in battle stances, and most of them had flat tipped a tanto drawn. One one didn't, and that was the man that had launched the fireball at the girl.

Deciding to fight first and ask why were they trying to kill a young girl later, he reached for a shuriken in his pouch. He was not about to let a young lady not even in her teens to get killed by a bunch of emotionless robots serving the rotten village of Konoha.

The girl pulled up her hands into a handsign that he didn't see, before her chakra exploded all around her into a massive plume of smoke. Just from the shere amount of chakra used, the fact that she used one handsign and the smoke in front of him, Naruto had a pretty good inclining to what jutsu it was.

With a small battle cry from the girl, the field was bathed in a sea od orange and yellow, making his eyes sting from the sight. Seriously, who wears such clothes these days. The last time he wore orange was when he played with his mother in the park at the age of 4. But if the girl could pull out that jutsu, one of the most dangerous and chakra expensive techniques in the world and at such a scale, then she must have been stronger than what she looked like.

Naruto was no stranger to how deceiving appearances could be. He still remembered what his mother had taught as a child about using understatement for your victory. That's why he didn't wear something as eye catching as ANBU clothing anymore.

On top of that, it was kinda pointless to wear such clothes when the most he did these days was hunt for meat, destroy bandit and slave camps for the needed supplies and money. That along with dealing with a few A-rank missing nins, just so that his skills don't get rusty. He could test himself only so much against his grandfather figure before they diminished, and his first 'rival' was dead.

He was dragged back to reality by a loud, inarticulate battle cry coming from the eye-sore of colours. He turned his attention back to the fight and sweat-dropped at the commotion. While the girl could create an incredible amount of shadow clones, something he hasn't seen from anyone since his mother, she had no appearent skills.

The clones were charging at the cold blooded drones like headless chicken! Apparently his first impression was right; while she did have insane chakra reserves her skills were catastrophic.

But he could use that to his advantage, oh yes this was a perfect distraction. While the ANBU concentrated on the girl's clones he will be able to surprise and pick off a couple of them before he had to take on the rest of them. But he had to hurry as the girl could drop dead from exhaustion any minute now. No one can keep pumping out clones like that for long, and her reserves were already dropping dangerously low by his senses. It would seem that he took to long to think things through, not something he did often.

Cobalt stormy blues danced across the battlegrounds, before locking their sight on a Root shinobi standing at the edge of the clearing. The man had just jumped into air and was running his hands through a sequence of handseals that was pretty damn long.

Long handseals sequences can only mean trouble.

Naruto crouched forward, putting his hands behind him and concentrating. He infused the shuriken with **Lightning** (_Raiton_) natured chakra, the metal in his hands soon sparkling with a soft blue. With deadly precision, he let the deadly throwing stars fly, bringing his hands together to form his own jutsu.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Root Drone #1 moulded his chakra and stopped on the last handsign for his jutsu, which was a Tora seal. He was one of the few Ne operatives that has been trained in elemental manipulation, having a very powerful **Fire **(_Katon_) chakra nature.

Their orders were simple and to the point. To bring back the Kyuubi Jinchuriki to the village at any and all costs. Failure was not an option. Especially not in the current times.

Konoha required, no it needed to have the power of Kyuubi within her grasp. Tensions were rising between the villages, alliances were being formed between one another and old pacts were being reevaluated. It was clear to anyone who had the whole picture that war was brewing, rising just on the horizon.

The attack that had managed to be the undoing of the Sandaime had managed to declare that it was going to be an open season. The Village Hidden In The Leaves will be unable to deal with all of her enemies. The village wasn't as powerful as it once was. During the previous wars, it had several S ranked shinobi at disposal to fight the enemy, up to 100 A –ranked ninja and a powerfull ally in the form of **Hidden Whirlpool Village **(_Uzushiogakure no Sato_).

Today, they didn't have a real ally any more. Suna had just backstabbed them and Taki was not one for wars. They relied on their isolationist ways to stay hidden and to survive the wars untouched. Konoha didn't have an obundance of A rank shinobi. It had exceptional chunin and plenty of high B rank shinobi, but they only had a dozen of A ranks and just two S ranked shinobi on their side.

One of those two was their Hokage, which meant that she will not be joining the battlefield often nor will she stay near the frontlines, while the other ran and operated a vast intelligence network that spanned across nations.

Danzo-sama had nearly died of a heart attack upon his return from the Land of Fire Capitol city. He had just gone on a short 'business' trip to the seat of power within the land and the first thing he finds out upon returning is that the 'Council' had BANISHED the Kyuubi Jinchuriki.

He should have taken her under his wing and trained her properly, instead of waiting for her to pass the Academy. How did they think she'll pull of a mere Bunshin with the Kyuubi inside of her. He should not have waited for that leering idiot to come and finally take up training his god-daughter.

As if being forced to send a kill squad after the first Uzumaki heir wasn't enough after the Kyuubi attack. They should have kept him in the village, and now he's God knows where doing who knows what.

The Yami no Shinobi then proceeded to order all 10 of his teams stationed at the village to fan out and scower the Land of Fire for the Uzumaki heiress. He had shown a suprising amount of frustration during that order.

Root Drone #1 drew a breath of air and was about to unleash his jutsu, a wide area Katon Ninjutsu upon the sea of orange. He however was forced to abort this plan of action as he heard the sound of incoming danger from his side.

Grunting to himself as the man was forced to cancel the fire technique before it got out of his control while still within his lungs, he turned to his right, the direction from where he heard the attack coming. He was greeted with the sight of 3 shuriken leaving the bushes and the tree leaves on a direct course with his torso.

Trailing behind the shuriken was a streak of blue, racing after them and towards him with the intent to kill. The emotionless shinobi didn't hesitate to twist himself in mid-air before those connected.

The downside of his unused jutsu was that he needed to be airborne when he delivered it, and airborne targets were tantalising targets. If the Rood Drone #1 was normal like any other person, then he would be cursing it right now. Allas he was not normal so he didn't curse at the situation, opting to prioritize his target from the Uzumaki Jinchuriki, who could live through almost any mortal wound with the aid of the Kyuubi to the unknown assailant in the bushes.

Who could it be, and why would they/he/she be attacking. This would have been the questions that the man would have wondered if he had lived after this engagement.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Back within the shade of the trees, Uzumaki Naruto's hands blurred together as he stopped on the last handsign for his jutsu. He never really likes using handseals for ninjutsu, but some jutsu he just didn't master yet. Besides his jutsu repertoire was too large for him to master everything. Not only did he have a strong Yin chakra and the Uzumaki Vitality Yang Chakra along with Renton as a Kekkai Genkai, he also had his own branch of 'blood' jutsu and the knowledge on how to use the other elements as well to form complex chakra to produce the secondary and tertiary elements, on top of his fuinjutsu studies, there was only so much he could learn and master with time.

As his chakra spiked he knew what to expect. Instead of shouting the name of the jutsu out loud, he opted to whisper it to himself silently, still hoping for some element of surprise on his side after dealing with this man.

_'' _**Raiton: Shuriken Kage Bunshin no Jutsu** _/ Lightning Style: Shuriken Shadow Clone__'_' His chakra which was still coursing through the outbound ninja tools responded to his command. There was a brief moment, when his ears could hear a faint sound of screeching chirps, before the chakra expanded, the shuriken replicating themselves over and over by the dozens, all with the singular purpose to drill through Root Drone #1.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Root Drone #1 didn't have time to react, he didn't even have enough time to blink as the few shurikens turned into many hundreds, multiplying mid-flight. The electricity charged within the metal suddenly reacted by enveloping the metal entirely. The shuriken then turned from a slow moving weapon to a screeching bullet of speed, the only sign of it's presence a streak of pale blue across the air.

If Root Drone #1 was a normal man, his face would have turned into horror at the sight of an electrically charged wall of steel racing towards him at speeds that only the strongest of ninjas or the Uchiha could follow.

But he wasn't normal.

He did not even utter a single sound of pain, not a cry nor a shout when the deadly tools collided with him. They punched holes through his entire body. Nothing was left normal. Not the arms, the legs, not even the torso, head or groin were spared by this unknown foe's attack.

The mangled and mostly see-through corpse of the Ne operative dropped to the ground, dead where it lay. The corpse would wait there for a long time, either for a hunter nin to come and destroy it along with any and all evidence for future reference, for someone from an opposing village to stumble upon the treasury of secrets within it or for an animal to come and eat it.

The single sound of the chirping birds along with the disappearance of Root Drone #1's chakra signature drew the attention of his teammates. Root Drone #2 and #4 saw the death of their teammate and ended the short life of 7 more clones while working in tandem. The clones, while lacking any sort of style in hand to hand combat were experts at evading attacks and were hard to pin down by shuriken.

Without speaking a word, both of them raced towards the direction from where the attack originated from, the woods to the east. Root Drone #2 started to weave handsigns for a genjutsu while Root Drone #4 pulled out a scroll with several seals on it from his pocket.

*As they advanced, they were prepared for just about anything that might come their way.

With a show of shadows, a body materialised above the tree tops. The ninja who had attacked and killed one of their own spared the two a single glance, before twisting around several times on his central axis, his hand reaching for his pouch and launching his follow up attack.

Just like he did with Root Drone #1, Naruto launched several shurikens at them before bringing his hands up to speed through a very similar technique.

The only difference was that it had two more handseals. One for quantity and the other...?

*They just never expected it to rain thunder and steel on a sunny day.

'' **Raiton: Raimeiame**_**/**_ _Lightning Style: Thundering Rain_''

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Uzumaki Natsuko was not having a good day, not a good day at all. She was frustrated, hungry and tired, on top of being in a loosing battle. Her clothes were covered with small cuts and littered with scrapes, and she was sure that she had a good number of bruises hidden underneath her favorite suit.

All of her troubles had started a little more than a week ago, when Sasuke-teme deserted the village and tried to go and join the snake sannin Orochimaru, Konoha's greatest traitor and number one enemy after his murder of Sandaime-jiji. The man had promised him power to kill his brother and like a hypnotised idiot he followed after that.

She, along with Nara Shikamaru, Akamichi Choji, Hyuuga Neji and Inuzuka Kiba, was sent to stop the Uchiha and drag his ungrateful ass back to the Leaf.

The mission was a disaster from the start, as the team kept loosing more and more members to 1 on 1 fights with Orochimaru's elite bodyguards. What was Baa-chan thinking when she sent them, 4 genin and the most useless chunin (In her opinion, someone as lazy as Shikamaru should not have become a chunin. His promotion didn't even make sense. Sure he knew when to quit but he could have done a better job of doing it...) against his elite, 4 powered up Oto nin.

It was a pure miracle that all of them had survived the ordeal.

Natsuko reached her teammate at the big waterfall called the Valley of the End. She though it was more of a gorge. Isn't valley a piece of flatlands surrounded by cliffs, hills and or mountains on either sides. They talked a little, he insulted her some and she trash talked back at him, promising to bring him back to the village. The fight was epic. They demolished the two statues of Madara and Hashirama...those were their names right?

Sasuke then used some strange evil chakra that came from his hickey, which turned his skin ash grey and grew him a pair of wings, honest to Kami wings that looked like hands with claws on the back of his back. She was forced to tap into the Kyuubi's chakra and she fought with her teammate anew. The bastard then drove a **Chidori **(_One Thousand Birds_) through her chest, destroying her heart in the process for the second time that day. By some miracle she survived and the Kyuubi had healed her wounds from there. Kakashi sensei and Pakkun appeared shortly after that and her sensei took her home, staying silent the entire time. As soon as they reached the village, he put her in the hospital.

After about a three days of recuperating, she was then summoned to the Council Chambers in the Hokage Tower by the polite Neko masked ANBU. And although she never wasted her time on learning about it, she had always believed that it consisted of the Hokage and the village Elders.

Apparently she was wrong, as it was made up out of the Clan Heads and three civilian representatives. She was debriefed once more and following her report of the failure of a mission, she was banished from Konoha.

BANISHED! They had, in an infuriatingly polite way accused her of losing control over the fox's chakra trapped within her body and then told her that she was becoming a threat to the village.

None of the Elders that she knew, not even that weir looking cripple that always argued with Sandaime-jiji were present at the meeting but the Godaime Hokage was.

She had pleaded with them not to banish her. She even offered to do all the D rank missions for an entire month! But they rebuked her, saying that she was becoming too much of a risk, especially after her demonstration of being able to use it during the chunin exams against Neji.

That threw her for a loop. She didn't get it, wasn't she supposed to learn how to control the demon's chakra. Wasn't that the only silver lining about being used as a sacrifice, the ability to control the terrible power within them? Why were they punishing her for that?

The whole while her obaa-chan… no! She didn't deserve to be called that anymore. Tsunade had just sat there with a constipated expression on her face and refused to even look at her. And what's worse, is that the parents of her teammates for the mission were also on the council. At least they were supposed to be on her side, their kids almost died on the mission as well.

She had been told that she had three days to leave Hi no Kuni. This time limit was too short in reality, as only the travel time to the closest border, which was due North took 3 straight days.

She had to pack anything of value (not much) and say her goodbyes within half an hour if she wanted to make it. She was not ordered to give back her headband which suprised her, but she tried to talk to Tsunade one last time. The woman didn't react to anything, ignoring her the entire time. The only time she showed a reaction was when she ripped the Shodaime's necklace from her neck, suprising everyone in the chamber that she had it as it was hidden under her jumpsuit, and threw it down on the floor.

She hadn't said goodbye to anyone but Teuchi-ossan and Ayame-nechan. The other girls from her class were too busy crying over the thought of their emo king leaving them and the guys weren't really her friends. They were nice enough but they weren't friends. She didn't have any friends in the village. She never spent the time after class with Shika or Choji, Kiba was always hitting on either her or Hinata and Shino just wasn't a social person. Besides the guys bugs kind freaked her out a little. She wasn't disgusted with him, but it was just too weird for her.

The only time she spoke to Neji was when she set his head straight and Lee gave her the creeps. She didn't even know their last teammates name. Tan-ton, Tin-ton, Ten-ten? Following that she had been running for two days straight when all of a sudden these weird ANBU had jumped right in front of her.

They had told her, in a very flat tone of voice that lacked any emotion that she is to come back to the village with them.

Bastards! All of them.

As if she would return to that place now. She had no plans of going back to the village that had betrayed her like so because they though that she might be loosing control over the beast. Well if someone had informed her that she had the fox sealed within her gut beforehand and gave her some real training maybe she would have been better at it.

Who knows, but that is not important to her in that moment. No use crying over spilled milk. Maybe some other village would take her in now. She knew there were other villages out there like the Hidden Mist Village (_Kiri_) and the Hidden...ugh...Hidden Waterfall Village (_Taki_).

She just had to find one, no problem. How hard can it be to find such a Village. Everyone knew where Konoha was even though it was called the Hidden Leaf.

So no Sir, she had no plans of going back to that hell hole. Maybe she could start somewhere fresh, begin a new, turn a new page, and make real friend with people.

And all of that was ruined when these ANBU with the weird blank masks showed up. But she won't go back to the village. If Uzumaki Natsuko was about to die, she will die swinging and giving them one hell of a fight.

Despite her happy go lucky attitude Natsuko held no delusions about her skills, or lack of them thereof. She knew she had no hope of winning against eight fully trained ANBU, so she decided to make a run for it.

She sent her clones at the ANBU to distract them while the original tried to escape. Unfortunately for her the clones didn't last long enough and she was kicked back to the middle of the circle, but not before lodging a kunai into the guy's throat. It was not her first kill so she didn't freeze, but she still felt a little bad about taking the man's life even in self defense.

So here she was making a last stand.

Evading an incoming fireball, Natsuko hissed as some of the flames nicked her clothes. Thankfully her favorite jumpsuit was fireproof so she should be fine as long as they don't do something drastic with Katon. For someone who was trying to bring her back alive, they were doing their best to kill her!

Hopping to her feet, the whiskered girl sent the guy who had launched that fireball a nasty glare that could freeze hell over. The guy steadfastly ignored it and she grew annoyed. And when Natsuko was annoyed she did the one thing she knew best.

'' **Kage Bunshin no Jutsu **_/ Shadow Clone Jutsu " _bringing her hands up to form the single hand sign, she declared the name of the technique with a loud battle cry. Blue energy, her chakra exploded around her feet and soon enough she was surrounded by smoke.

A small gust of wind came from out of nowhere and she felt like she had some hope against them, maybe she could overwhelm them. She knew very well just how much chakra she had over everyone else in the village, she had just as much as Sandaime jiji did.

So she felt some hope for her, because right there in front of the ANBU, standing around her stood over 400 clones all of them cracking their knuckles.

Sending the guys a cocky smirk that hid just how much she knew she was outclassed by them, she pointed a finger at that one ANBU that kept turning into a bunch of leaves. How was she supposed to beat a guy when he kept using clone..es...oh!

Damnit, it was so not fair to fight clones!

''Charge!'' she commanded of her personal army and like the good little clones that they were, here she insulted her own height but meh, they obeyed without question, rushing in front of her to fight the Konoha Shinobi.

''Go get them!''

''Yatta!''

''Attack''

''Got it boss!''

POOF...POOF...POOF..CHIRP..POOF...POOF POOF POOF POOF

It was a slow massacre, fighting these 7...6?..6 ANBU head on, but it was a massacre nonetheless. She watched as another pair of clones went up in smoke after trying and failing to deliver a kick to the man's shin. No matter how good she dodged the attacks sent at her she just couldn't land a decent hit on them.

Natsuko flexed her hand as she looked at it. She would have tried using the Rasengan on them but that would fail before it was even started. She needed an oppening for that and it was proving impossible to create one.

She ran forwards, creating several more clones and bringing out a kunai, throwing it at an incoming shuriken and deflecting it into the air. Ducking under a small barrage of razor sharp leaves, her eyes landed on two of these strange ANBU doing something that surprised her.

They were drawing weapons while running away from her? That doesn't make any sense.

The next few minutes would shake her life in more ways that one. She saw one of the men unroll a scroll like whats her name did in the preliminaries and only then, did she see it.

A mass of black appeared out of thin air, shimmering into the existence above the tree tops in the same way that Sasuke and Lee did in their fights before. One moment there's nothing and then they are there. From the distance she couldn't get a good look at the figure, but it was someone wearing mostly bleak and boring colours. He appeared there with such speed that she had no way of tracking him without going Jinchuriki. It was as if he or she had teleported. Straining her ears for a reason she didn't know since her hearing was already much better than anyone besides the Inuzuka, she had just enough time to hear the name of the jutsu before her jaw dropped in awe.

''**Raiton: Raimeiame**_**/**_ _Lightning Style: Thundering Rain_'' a voice faint but powerfull called out the name of the jutsu.

Halting with her movements in a crouch as her clones kept the Root operatives busy behind her back she starred at the light show before her. True to the name, the technique made it look like it was raining thunder upon it's targets.

Multiple thousands, more than she could ever hope to count, streaks of pale blue light descended upon the two foes, leaving behind them pale blue streaks of light in their wake.

One of the ninja unrolled the scrolls out in front of him, and a wall of earth somehow appeared there in a puff of smoke. That was the only thing both of them managed to do before their lives were ended. The earthen defense didn't even slow down the speeding meteors as they bombarded the two ANBU, piercing through flesh and bone before hitting the ground and exploding upon contact behind them.

Explosions rocketed the area as she watched amazed at the attack. She had never seen anyone pull of such a widespread attack that caused such damage. Well, at least not a single ninja do it. She was there with a front row seat when Toad Boss and the Ichibi sand racoon duked it out 50 miles outside the village, but those guys were humongous, taller than the Kage tower.

The attack ended and she was about to look for the man before a distressed voice snapped her out of her staring. ''Boss watch out!'' her voice sounded from around her. Oh wait that was one of her clones.

Trusting herself with the clone's words she turned around as quickly as she could. Her face grew mortified as she saw the tip of the tipless tanto wielded by the ninja descending upon her, about to pierce her throat.

Natsuko closed her eyes in fear, the spark that allowed her to defy the odds before, now gone. This was it. She would die here, and there was nothing she could do about it. She will never become Hokage nor will she ever amount to anything in her life. Everyone will remember her as 'that kid' or 'the failure'. Only the Ichiraku's would mourn her loss. The events of the past few days flew in her mind and she surrendered.

CLANG

The sound of metal hitting metal reached her sensitive ears, meaning that she was...not hit..? Wait just one moment, that ain't right. She should have felt the blade hit her and have the pain flare up inside her.

Slowly, oh so slowly and meekly after realising that she wasn't leaking blood in copious amounts yet, she dared to open her eyes and stumbled backwards. What she saw was a shocker in more ways than one for the little girl.

The first thing she had seen was a sword standing there horizontally, blocking the tanto wielded by the ANBU before it could reach her face. The tanto that was going to hit her and most likely kill her. Her eyes quickly darted to the side, following the length of the blade. The sword looked like any other sword you could buy at the blacksmiths or at a ninja store. There was nothing exceptional about it. Though she thought that katana's were longer, maybe it was one of those other swords. She only knew of the tanto and katana for swords.

The handle, from what she could see was black and like any other handle was wrapped in leather like bandages to keep the grip from slipping in your hands. The next shocker came in the fact that the man blocking the sword wasn't even facing the ANBU, but had his back to the man.

She looked up at the wielder and saw a rather handsome shinobi standing before her. He had red spiky hair and whisker marks like she did. He looked about seventeen or eighteen years old and was quite tall, probably just about six foot give or take a few, she couldn't measure it at that moment.

He was wearing a dark grey T- shirt that clung to his sculptured body and an unzipped jacket with black and red colours. A mixture between dark grey and metallic blue pants followed after that and ended with simple blue ninja sandals. Around his right leg, located on the middle od his thigh on the outer side, he had a dark blue kunai holster. Around his hips he had several beige pouches containing his equipment and slung over his left shoulder was the sheath for his sword.

His left hand was holding the sword that saved her life while his other hand was held in front of him, set in a hand sign that she didn't recognise. His fist was closed, with the pinky finger pointing skywards and the thump pointing at him. The ANBU behind her was frozen as some weird symbols danced across his skin, pulsing with an irritated blue. Natsuko had to fight back a blush as she saw his cobalt blue eyes look into her shy blue ones, she felt as if he was trying to see right into her soul. That was when she took in how his face had that baffled look to it, like he was seeing something that shouldn't be possible or as he was looking at a ghost. The red-haired man, who couldn't be that much older than her, had his whole face frozen in an expression of shock as his mouth opened and closed a couple of times.

''Wh..wha?'' even his voice sounded handsome and Natsuko had no idea where she got that thought from. But Natsuko, even for all her listening skills which were utterly non-existant, could hear the tremble in the man's words as he stuttered that word out. His eyes were wide and the hand with which he held the sword stated to waver.

Natsuko would have stared at the man for a good long while if her clones didn't start poofing out of existance and reality as the ninjas rushed at them. The man heard the sound of dispelling and quickly looked behind him, seing that Root Drone #5, 6 & 8 were making their way towards them.

His left hand exploded into lightning as his released the handsign for the paralysis fuinjutsu, deming his latest test a failure since he had to hold the handsign. He wanted perfection with everything he did and wanted to be like his mother when it came to seals.

Oh well, back to the drawing board for him.

The lightning traveled from his hand and transferred into the swords, the sound of birds chirping and screeching filling the air as he cut the tanto in half, cleaving through the torso of it's wielder a moment later before kicking... the girl whose looks made his blood run cold away from the fight.

Bringing his hand up he switched his sword hand and brough his now left free hand up to his mouth. Breaking the hard skin with his canine teeth, he flicked the blood towards the kunoichi who looked like a younger version of his mother, only with blonde hair and whisker marks on her face.

**''Ninpo: Chi Bunshin / **_Ninja art: Blood Clone_'' He ran through two handseals for one of his original jutsu with his left hand while pushing a dangerous amount of chakra into his legs. With a violent boom that actually caused the earth underneath his feet to crumble he blasted towards the Root Drone #5, rocketing from his position to meet the Root Drones head on, his whole body trembling as the shock started to mess with his body.

The lightning chakra vibrating around his sword sparked further as shock turned into anger, and the derived technique from the one and only jutsu he had learned from Kakashi when he wanted the strength to defend his mother grew louder.

''**Raikiri Nagashi / **_Lightning Blade Current_''

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

There was a set of things that happened after she was saved that caused the young kunoichi to become confused. The first would have been the sound of _that_ technique screeching from the man's sword as he cleaved the tanto cleanly in half and nearly cut the ANBU in two. How did this man know Kakashi sensei's technique. Did the man teach it to someone else or not.

She was always a little sour that she didn't get to learn the Chidori. Rasengan was awesome and all, but there was just something about being able to play with lightning like that that made the technique so appealing to her.

Natsuko again didn't know how to react when her saviour suddenly kicked her away from her position with one might kick that hit her over her chest, and then he flicked his blood at her. There must have been something strange going on, beside tha rather obvious wrong with all of this.

Natsuko yelped as she landed on her but, rolling backwards once before hitting something solid. She knew that it wasn't a tree nor that it was one of her clones, who had mysteriously vanished somehow. Those ANBU couldn't have killed them all that fast. They weren't using ninjutsus so it should have taken them longer than that.

''Ou..what the hell dattebano?'' she hollered as she looked up from her position and came to the sight of her savior standing behind her, his legs acting as that hard wall that she had hit.

Blinking owlishly, she turned her baby blues to look towards the rest of the field where she was a moment before. She saw the same man launching several large bullet of fire from his mouth at the blank fasked black ops, seemingly intent on turning them to crisp. The ANBU who for some reason seemed weaker than what she though ANBU were like retaliated by launching a wide array of kunai at the man, who used his lightning infused sword to block them. The Raikiri Current in the sword was slowly melting the metal of the sword away from the heat, but it was also disintegrating the kunai that came in contact with the jutsu all the while.

The blood clone was as frozen as his creator was just a few seconds ago. The girl's voice sounded so similar to her. Although a younger version, it still resembled his mother's a great deal.

Forcing his body to relax, the clone reached for the girl and gently picked her up. He made sure to be more gentler that his creator was in the haste to get the girl to safety. Snapping his fingers in front of her, he got her attention. ''Hey girl, are you alright?''

Natsuko noded, not really trusting to use her voice at the moment. Her life has been through one hell of a roller coaster ride and she was a mess. The near death experience did nothing to help with the frustration she felt right now nor the confusion she still felt gripe at her heart painfully.

The Naruto blood clone walked in front of her to act as a shield before running through another set of handseals. Taking his time with the jutsu he wanted to make sure that it was the strongest barrier that he as a clone could make it. And while he kept his eyes open for any suprise attacks, he slammed his hands to the ground. Blue runes raced from under his palm, the kanji character stretching out into a wide circle around them. The ground glowed with a soft blue before chakra raced out of the seals.

A blue wall, like a dome rose out and into the air from the asian letters while the same thing happened underneath the earth. Not too long after that and the two of them were encased in a perfect sphere of chakra, acting as a barrier from any attacks or foes that decided to take a shot at the girl. Natsuko watched in wonder as the barrier closed up above their heads before the name of the technique made her wonder.

''**Uzumaki Fuinjutsu: Anzen Kyōkai **/ _Uzumaki Sealing Art: Safety Boundary_**''**

She looked at the clone in wonder, her mouth moving but no sound coming out of it. She nearly eeped when the clone addressed her with a question, turning around to stare at her with soul piercing cobalt eyes.

"What's your name kunoichi-san?" he whispered but in the silence of the dome it carrier over perfectly. There was underlying confusion and the barest hint of longing in his voice, but it was restrained mightily fine.

The blonde haired girl looked down on the ground, her eyes landing on a very familiar looking spiral. It was the same seal that was permanently placed on her, always there for the world to see. One of the reasons why she never wore revealing clothes was that spiral shaped seal.

"Natsuko. Uzumaki Natsuko!" she answered in an uncharacteristically subdued voice as she looked up at the man that had saved her. Well at least his clone was nice. Nobody could have missed the way the man stiffened at the sound of her name. There was a long moment of silence, which was only broken when several pieces of earth that was dislodged by an explosion whose sound she didn't hear, landed on the barrier. The part of the ground caused a ripple like effect on the shield of blue, like when a rock dropped into water before it fell to the ground harmlessly.

While the silence lasted, Natsuko leaned to the side just in time to see a twister of red, almost crimson liquid surround the last standing Root Drone, before the entire thing compressed into a small sphere, taking the man's life in a very gruesome way.

She winced as she saw it and the memories of the Sand Coffin in action.

"…Impossible." Naruto's clone whispered, disbelief now fully audible in his voice. Natsuko turned to look at the clone as the barrier dropped, only to be shocked by his words.

''You can't be Natsuko...she..she's dead''

* * *

**Jutsu list:**

**Lightning Style: Shuriken Shadow Clone / **_Raiton: Shuriken Kage Bunshin no Jutsu_ : A- rank The user creates a thousand shadow clones from one shuriken imbued with Lightning, striking down the enemy and piercing through them at accelerated speeds. This is a technique that combines ninja tools with elemental ninjutsu. Compared to normal shadow clones, clones of material objects are said to be on a far higher level, while the elemental shadow clones offer several more attributes to the. There is no need for preparations beforehand, like stocking up on shuriken, or kunai, yet since the shadow clones are real and not illusions, all the shadow blades that fly around are equally lethal. Because the clones form in just an instant, completely evading them is next to impossible. The only problem here could be the taxing on the user's reserves, though it's comparatively lesser the the shadow clone technique itself.

**Lightning Style: Thundering Rain / **_Raiton: Raimeiame:_ A- rank The technique is essentially a glorified Lightning Style: Shuriken Shadow Clone, but the number of created copies which fly faster leaving a streak of light behind them, pierce the target and explode on impact can block out the sun, falling down upon your foes like rain from the sky. First name choice: Raiton: Taju Shuriken Kage Bunshin Rendan (Lightning Style: Multiple Skuriken Shadow Clone Barrage)

**Ninja art: Blood Clone / **_Ninpo: Chi Bunshin_ : S- rank. The technique uses the user's blood as a medium and catalyst for creating a very advanced clone. The clone is a complete copy of the user, with blood and bones, down to each and every cell and all the equipment worn being replicated using the powerful Yang chakra of the Senju and the Uzumaki clan to give form. Due to the initial lack of balanced Yin chakra the constructs will not last longer than the amount of chakra given to them. When killed, they don't dispel immediately. Only after the chakra runs out to these clones return to their basic from, which was the user's sacrificed blood.

**Lightning Blade Current** / _Raikiri Nagashi_ : A- rank. Ninjutsu developed by Uzumaki Naruto. By directing the Raikiri into the palm of his hand and enveloping the weapon used, the immense piercing power of the Lightning Blade is channeled into a weapon, most often a sword or a kunai, but items such as pencils can also be used ( XD Kirabi !) This makes it nearly unlockable as the radiating and chirping blade can easily cut through steel. Furthermore, if an opponent is stabbed, their body goes numb due to an electrical current which causes the muscles to contract, making it impossible for the opponent to move.

**Uzumaki Sealing Art: Safety Boundary** / _Uzumaki Fuinjutsu: Anzen Kyōkai_: B- rank. A fuinjutsu barrier created out of the user's chakra, it creates a perfect 7 meter in diameter sphere that is theoretically unpiercable. As long as the technique has enough power, it can stand up to anything. However it is a very chakra consuming technique which can drain the user fast is he or she doesn't have large enough polls of chakra. Created by the masters of the Sealing Arts The Uzumaki clan, the technique has been considered lost with the destruction of the village hidden in the Whirpools (Hidden Eddy just doesn't cut it)


	2. To Change One's Fate

**ARC I:** Baby Steps

Lost Family / Generic Training

_**Ch 2:** To change one's fate_

* * *

For a long moment, there was only silence. The lack of audible sound or presence of sounds of very low intensity quickly established dominance over the forest that was usually so busting with wildlife during this time of the year, when the sun is high and the temperatures are dry. At such a time, the activity in this area was always constant, and such a silence was a strange thing to be sure.

And why would it be silent, you ask yourself. Well seeing as there wasn't a single soul, animal or human in sight then it must mean that all of the little forest creatures have already started to evacuate the premises and the surrounding area by the time that the first explosion had sounded off in their midst.

The air around the area hung with the feelings of death and coldness, as if the god of Death, Shinigami has decided to pay the mortal realm a visit in the middle of his daily job of controlling the flow of souls into the afterlife.

Up above in in the clear blue sky, the yellow mid-day sun shone brightly from it's throne in the clouds. It's position indicated to anyone who looked at it and could see it, be they civilian or shinobi alike that it was about noon, maybe give or take an hour at most. The light giving star shone down from it's resting place in the heavens after its monumental climb to reach it, illuminating with it what was once a peaceful and quiet clearing filled with vibrant green and fresh grass, with the occasional bald spot of earth and rock to add diversity.

Going with that plan of scenery, there was even a number of yellow flowers popping out every few feet, which only added to what was once a serene picture. This was not the case of it anymore though. Less than one hour ago, this place was the epitome of calmness and the hot spot for any nature lover that knew how to find it. One hour ago, this was a place where various forest animals could have come to bask in the sunlight of the daily sun. Children from the nearby villages could come here and play if they so wished and the young and romantic couples could come here to share their feelings of love. Even the elderly in their late years could have, if they were spry enough, come here to enjoy their golden years in peace and harmony, all the while listening to the symphony of animals.

All of this was possible just over one hour ago. Now, the place was as silent as a graveyard on a rainy day, it's animals having fled from there a while ago. Now the looked like a small war had been fought here. One one side of the field was a great number of craters, both deep and shallow, big and small alike. This was the part that too the greatest share in making the picture of this place to look like a battlefield from one of the Shinobi World wars, instead of a nice and welcoming resting spot, located in the middle of nowhere within a forest. The smoke that slowly rose up and danced with the win only added to the already impressive carnage of the landscape. Pieces of ninja equipment, most notably the numerous thrown kunai from the emotionless side littered the field by the dozens.

Some of these metal tools were buried all the way into the ground up to their hilts, sticking out like some joke of a plant that a man planted there after taking four to many cups of sake with his buddies. Some were simply lying on the ground like pieces of scattered equipment that needed to be tidied up after an intense spar, while most of them now sported a new appearance.

The ones with a new appearance were the most numerous, and now they made up the disorganized piles of molten slag, not looking anything like the finely crafted tools of death that the shinobi used daily like a farmer used a pitchfork. Earth has been upheaved in several places, result of Doton ninjutsu (Earth) and the sheer chakra impressions making it's mark known.

The green and vibrant grass has been all but completely burned away due to the reckless throwing of numerous flaming bullets from both sides, and there was even a small amount of lava bubbling in the sun near one of these dead shinobi. That misfortune man had his left side completely melted away by something.

...hmm, I wonder what it was?

And that body was the part of the last piece of the puzzle which made up the sight, only adding to the already existing morbid impression that the area gave away. The filed also sported an addition of 7 dead bodies. All of the corpses wore black clothing similar to ANBU, but they had blank face masks.

Seven out of the the eight members of the disbanded Root ANBU Black Ops unit which has stumbled upon the Kyuubi Jinchuriki had their corpses exposed in the sunlight, having spent their last moments fighting for their undear and emotionless lives with the ferocity of a sleaze. In short they weren't giving it much thought, not having any goal besides following orders had messed up with their creativity.

Standing in the middle of all this carnage, the upright form of one Uzumaki Naruto let out a shaky breath of air. His chakra had just started to calm down, with some small sparks of electricity still blitzing across the earth beneath his sandal clad feet.

The man had his cobalt blue eyes trained on one strange sight. It was the hovering paste of compressed remains in a pebble sized sphere that was his final opponent. Despite the fact that he was essentially standing in the middle of a massacre and of the acts that he had just committed, taking several lives from this plane of existence, a small grin that looked way out of place in this situation formed on his face as he stared at the ominously pulsing orb of crimson liquid in mid air.

In his entire 20 year old life, Naruto had entered the second state Jinchuriki shroud only once. The event happened around 10 years ago, when he was being taught how to control the corrosive and malicious chakra within him by his grandfather figure. At the time he was still trying and failing to deal with the loss of his entire family. Although he cared very, very little about Minato and wouldn't have cared if the man jumped of a cliff wearing a pink speedo, he cared for his mother with a fanatical love that only the most devoted of children could have. When he heard that he was going to get a little sister, that love multiplied and was going to be given to her as well. But then, disaster struck and his entire life fell apart.

His mother who was the second host of the Nine Tailed Demon Fox was giving birth at a 'secure' location, since the seal holding the Biju at bay was at it's weakest at birth. Someone attacked her, killed all of her guards which were the best of the best that the Black Ops core could give, and had her tailed beast extracted from her. The Kyuubi rampaged in the village for about 10 minutes before the Yondaime showed up. His baby sister, the person who would have become the center of his world was used not even 15 minutes after her birth by the man who sired her as a sacrifice to save the village.

Naruto loathed the Yondaime with the intensity which could rival the unholy black flames of the Uchiha clan. The man was no father nor a man that his mother deserved, putting a village of strangers since there was no way for one man to know all of the 22000 people before his family. After that mishap Naruto knew that he would have to take his sister as far away from that rotten village as he could. He had a very poor picture of that village which was only fueled by the secrets about it that he knew.

But he couldn't have, because his little sister died shortly after. Naruto had spent a total of one hour making sure she was clean and healthy after taking her from her father's corpse, and then succumbed to exhaustion. When he woke up, she was dead. He had been a total wreck after that, and the wound never healed no mater what he did. He spent a good portion of his life in isolation, training without a goal to live for. And the chakra latched onto that darkness within him, before taking him over.

The result of loosing control was him entering the 4 tailed shroud. He had the most unfortunate of experiences then, living through having his skin corroded and removed away. After the first layer of skin is gone, the demonic energy or tailed beast chakra used the blood of its host as a catalyst for the transformation, creating a shapable new layer of skin. The skin was a mixture of blood and chakra, and it's looks could only be surmised as monstrous.

Even without having the main Kyuubi itself within him, the potent and deadly chakra still reeked of malice and made him go berserk. He had demolished a good part of the mountain before he was beaten into subconsciousness. That event was the one and only time he had ever seen his grandfather figure get seriously injured, and he was the cause of it.

Having your thigh and arm pierced by those freakish tails must have hurt like a bitch.

The only saving grace of that fight was in the fact that the man was already familiar with the dangerous and demonic chakra and it's side effects to human tissue, himself being the Jinchuriki of the Yonbi, the Four Tailed Monkey Sage. Following another emotional freak out and a week long mental break down, since he was just 10 years old at the time, Naruto decided to immerse himself into his training even more, using the experience as a crutch to improve himself.

And it was so, that the Ninpo: Chiton, Blood Release was born. The power over blood was truly one of the most useful and terrifying things that he has learned to do in his life. The basis for the style was Suiton (Water Release) and demonic chakra manipulation. Naruto's reasoning was that if a foreign entity within his body without a semblance of intelligence and the simple goal of destruction could take control over his blood to form a whole new layer of skin and then use that blood to split his body in half when a Lava bullet was about to impress itself into his torso, and then connecting both halfs back together and continuing like nothing happen onto creating more destruction, then he sure as hell will find a way to replicate the feat.

Besides his Lightning Element, his blood most often proved to be the fastest and most lethal way of dealing with enemies, with him having the most control over it. There were no handseals for his style, it was all in control and precision.

Naruto let the grin fall of his face as he flexed his palm, and the pulsing orb exploded in the air, covering the place like a crimson mist. What was once a fully grown man with blood and bones, wearing clothes and weapons was now fine paste. The moment he had ensnared them man with his blood, Naruto made a shell and compressed it as tightly as he could. The pressure made short work of anything that was caught in it, mincing any mass within into fine liquid powder when he applied the basics of the Rasengan within it.

Slowly turning around, the only male child of Uzumaki Kushina started to move towards his clone and that little girl that he had saved. His cobalt blue eyes locked with the girl's baby blues, which watched him with a tint of caution and a large part of awe. Finding the sight of her gaze too disturbing for him, the man turned his head away. She looked so much like her that it was disturbing.

He searched for anything that could gather his attention and looked at his sword, which had served him for just about two years without problem.

Or at least what used to be, once at the time his sword. The half melted half solid pipe of steel in his hands could hardly be called a sword anymore, having been melted away by the high frequency and hot temperature of his modified Raikiri.

Hmm...maybe he really should invest some of his money into buying one of those chakra conducting swords that were being produced in Tetsu no Kuni. The chakra blades were made especially for conducting chakra into them, as the Land of Iron was rich in both high quality iron ore and had the largest source of chakra metal on the continent. While with enough practice a shinobi can conduct his chakra into anything, living or artificial, most of those things are to weak to receive his potent chakra when he fought in a battle. Outside of a battle, it was easy to do so.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Placed far enough away on the sidelines from the devastated clearing that it was deemed safe to stay and standing beside the rather imposing but kind figure of the red haired man's clone, one little blonde haired Jinchuriki watched in morbid fascination as the last remains of the ANBU turned into a cloud of blood.

She blinked as the mist began to slowly dissipate, the humid death slowly being absorbed by the earth beneath it. The field that was already burned and soaked with a fresh layer of blood. It was an eerily beautiful sight to watch, she thought as all of the blood suddenly vanished into the ground behind the man as he looked at her.

Feeling bold from nowhere, she looked directly into his eyes, which seemed to be glowing slightly from her point of view. But then it was gone so maybe she imagined it. Peering into his cobalts, she knew that she should be at least slightly cautious of a man that just dropped out of nowhere and has managed to do all of this in less than a minute.

However any side of caution was completely and utterly overshadowed by her thoughts of awe at the man. He did all of this destruction in less than a minute. Glancing to the side for just one short moment, she looked back at the man.

How the heck did he manage to create Lava was the biggest mystery to her.

She wanted to pout at herself, having missed what would have undoubtably been the most exciting battle to date besides the Sannin Showdown, and it would have been awesome.

Lightning being waved around like a toy in masters craftsman's hands, twisters of red killing, poisoning and compressing the bad guys, upheaved pieces of earth being rolled about all around and fireballs raining like it was a fire show.

Yeah she missed one Kami damned exciting minute.

''Hey mister what's your name'' she found herself asking of the man's clone as the original turned to gaze at his ...melted sword? How the heck did he do that, dattebano?

Turning around on her feet, she peered upwards at still muted clone, trying to make him say something. She was annoyed at the silence. Ever since she had told him her name and the man commented about how she was supposed to be dead, the clone had stayed silent and had an air of despair surrounding him.

Really the only thing missing was an imaginary rain cloud over him...

''...''

He didn't respond, only stood there like some sort of a statue as he stared at his approaching creator. Resigning in defeat she turned around once again and looked back at the original, hoping that the man is more chatty then his copies, not noticing how his whole body went rigid.

Naruto had covered his stiffening expertly, but his mind was in a hailstorm at the moment.

It was impossible, there was no way that could be Natsuko. He had seen her corpse, damn it he still had her corpse safely sealed away to be preserved for as long as it could be.

While the Blood Clone does not transfer it's experiences back to the original once dispelled like Tobirama Senju's Kage Bunshin, it does have one handy trick that the Shadow Clone does not.

Due to the very nature of such a creation, since it was for all intents and purposes a living and breathing creature for as long as it had chakra, it meant that there were two or more living beings with perfectly matching neurons and synapses in their brains with compatible bio-electrical fields when a blood clone or clones are formed.

This could be used for communication in real time by the clones. By focusing their chakra into the brain area, more specifically the neural cortex which was something that anyone sane or without enough chakra control to be on par with Tsunade would have considered suicidal, the clones and their creator could converse mentally just up to the distances of 5 kilometres in any given direction.

Which meant that the clone had just told him her name.

''Impossible..'' Uzumaki Naruto, one of the last living Uzumakis in the entirety of the Elemental Nations and quite possibly the only survivor of the devastated clan, found himself copying what his copy said just over a minute ago in perfect detail.

''It's..it's impossible'' He whispered as he dispelled the clone, taking all of the chakra used in it's creation back into himself. ''There...is no way...no way''. His mouth clamp shut just as he reached the blonde haired girl, who had freaked out the moment his clone had turned into a fine red mist of blood.

Calming herself from the strange method of dispelling, Natsuko turned back to this obviously powerful man before her, wondering what was going to happen to her now. Looking up with curiosity shining in her eyes, the Kyuubi Jinchuriki watched intently as the tall man looked over her facial structures with sharp blue eyes.

He was taking in every keen detail about her face that he could think of, mentally comparing it to his mother's face, at least what he could still remember how it looked like. It was a while since he looked at her face, even with his preservation technique sheltering their bodies for all eternity.

Having to look at the woman that loved him with all of her heart and knowing that she will never look back at him with the same warmth in her eyes proved to be a far to difficult task after the first three years.

While he did that, Natsuko copied his action to the best of her abilities, her mind and eyes focussing on the three pairs of birthmarks on his cheeks. The whisker marks that looked identical to her own in all but the sharpness and the texture.

While her's were strong to the sight and pronounced to the eye, the man's seemed to be slightly faded. That was the only differences between them, and she found herself wondering what kind of connection she had to this man.

For what seemed like one long moment, an enormous pressure weighed down on her and the surrounding forest in an at least a two hundred yard radius. A potent and malicious killing intent rolled off of Naruto in waves as the male Uzumaki closed his eyes. His brain was already at work, painting and picturing the various scenarios that could have happened and are happening at the moment. While he had tamed his demonic chakra by now, he could never purge it completely out of himself, nor did he wish to for a number of reason.

This was why his killing intent made Natsuko quiver in her legs as her mind tried to fight the sensation and she wasn't even targeted at all. Killing intent wasn't something that many knew how to project, and those that did often found their anger affecting the people around them. Once you learned how to do it, there will always be a certain radiation coming from your chakra. Anger turned that radiation into a sickening feeling. There was a number of ways to counteract the technique, but most genin didn't know how since they were rarely ever exposed to it. It was not something that was easily produced and it required a set of parameters to truly work.

The more experience and chakra the ninja had, the radiation had less effect on them, especially if they had a strong willed mind. By the time someone reached the rank of chunin, the most such a thing could inspire was terror in them, but rarely enough to make the man lose himself to the fear or pass out. Those were usually the results of a man's infamy.

However even with the potent effect it had on her, Natsuko could tell it wasn't targeted at her, a fact she was instantly grateful for. It was the most intense killing intent she had ever felt, it completely dwarfed what she felt from Zabuza or any of the other enemies she had ever faced. It reminded her of that one time when she meet the Kyuubi in the seal, and it felt as powerful as the foxes, maybe even stronger.

No maybe it wasn't stronger but it was… different. It spoke of rage, a destruction of a death that couldn't be avoided, it was heavy, thick and suffocating and yet it seemed… precise, controlled.

"Impossible." There it was again, the man said the same words all over again. Natsuko who had by now shrugged the sickening sensation away grew annoyed at his words. Was that all this man could say.

She would have rolled her eyes at him but didn't want to anger the man who had just saved her life and made so much carnage in less time then it took her to devour a bowl of ramen.

And that's saying something.

Naruto took a deep breath in order to calm himself. As soon as he felt his temper, along with his wild and stubborn chakra subsiding, he opened them and looked at the girl intently. Could it really be? A big part of him, the part that had longed for a family and love of his closed ones for the last 12 years hoped it to be true. That part wanted, with all of his might that the girl in front of him was truly his sister. For her to be real, alive and well.

Another part of him, the dark part of him that was selfish and vengeful, the part which was still hurting, born from the loss of all that he held dear didn't want that. The thought that she lived without his presence in her life was tearing him apart even now, when there was a chance that it was all a lie.

Without saying something he turned around and motioned for the girl to follow him. She did so without question, figuring out that she really had no say in the matter. Moulding chakra, he then jumped up into the nearest tree and landed on a branch, before dashing to the next branch, heading for the nearest village that he knew of.

Landing on the same tree that her red haired saviour did a second before, Natsuko watched him jump to another man sized branch sticking out from the side of the titanic trees with cautious eyes. After a moment's hesitation Natsuko followed after him, using what chakra she had left to propel herself across the trees.

The one hour trip across the trees was spent in silence. Natsuko didn't know how to start a conversation with the man who had saved her, having learned from her past experiences that not many people wanted to share words with her, so she focussed on making sure that her gut and one of the branches sprouting from the trees didn't get acquainted with another.

That and jumping took all of her concentration. The girl was tired and just wanted to fall down and sleep for an entire week. Never once in her life did she feel this tired, not even when she struggled to learn the Rasengan, but she will not show such weakness to anyone, let alone some stranger. It was only because she had the Kyuubi inside her that she was still able to run around. The happenings of the past week weighed heavily on her.

Naruto, for his part also didn't know how to start out. Not long after he started this silent trek did he use his skills as a sensor in the Kaguya Shindan Technique to compare their chakras together.

While his was much heavier and colder, the result of his traumatic past and having killed a lot of people by now, her's was cheerful and lively for the largest part. There was a good deal of loneliness that he sensed forming within her, but when he compared it with his own, he nearly stumbled into a branch head first, having used his skills to twist over it with a show of acrobatics.

Almost an exact match.

It was impossible for anyone other than an Uzumaki and a Kyuubi Jinchuriki at the same time to have a _similar_ chakra signature to his truly, but an _almost exact_ match meant that they shared parents. Or a parent in this case, since Kushina's chakra was that much more powerful than Minato-teme's that it had completely overpowered it during Natsuko's conceivment. Add that to the lingering taint of the Kyuubi in their mother's eggs and they had a countless number of similarities.

Emerging from the tree line with a speedy jump, the two Uzumaki clan members landed on the main road without making much noise, like any ninja should be capable of doing even if he was one leg in the grave already.

In front of them was a small village with a population of 200, it's buildings mostly scattered around but somehow forming an organized mess. A contradiction if there ever was one, but it was the truth. It was a lumberjacking village for the most part, but they also had a pair of farms providing food for the people and an Inn for the travelers that passed through the woods.

Naruto spared his sister a glance before he started to approach the entrance on the road, only stopping long enough to say one word. ''Come.''

His word was soft and quiet, but Natsuko heard it nonetheless. Taking the clue that they were going to stop here, hopefully for some rest since she was all but exhausted, the whiskered girl obeyed, trailing after the older man two feet behind.

The two of them moved into the village and Natsuko looked around. She found herself admiring the structures of the area. The design was not unlike anything she had ever seen in her life which wasn't exactly saying much. She had spent her entire childhood cuped up behind village walls and the farthest she went on any mission was up to Wave Country, which is just past the border of the Land of Fire. All of the structures within the village were built out of stone that was shaped into perfect bricks. The roofs were made out of something black and had a sharp edge to them, giving them a hard but durable appearance. There was a water well in the middle of the the village and a stable for horses near one of the farms.

Naruto turned around and looked at his blonde companion as she stopped walking. She was looking around the area with a curiosity of a child that has never seen anything like it and was now trying her hardest to ingrave the sights within her memory banks.

Leaving her to gaze at the area after making sure there weren't any ninja here, he entered the inn with a chuckle, before approaching the matron and sharing a few words with her.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

As Natsuko entered through the paste coloured doors, following behind the red haired man that had saved her, she looked around it with suspicion as the man closed the door behind her with a soft click, leaving them unlocked. The 'silent' man as she had dubbed him, still not knowing his name had gotten them a room in the small inn while she wasn't following his lead, having opted to take in the sights of the village.

One room.

Now, Natsuko was generally a rather trusting girl who wanted to make friends with everyone she meet, but even she knew that following an insanely powerful and completely unknown individual into his room wasn't exactly the smartest of ideas, even if said man had saved her goose earlier.

On the other hand what could she do? The man was an insanely powerful and completely unknown individual to her. Who knows how he'll react if she starts resisting to his orders, which up untill now were rather simple and to the point.

Follow. Follow. Come in.

The memory from the last kill she had witnessed came back to her and she shivered at the rather gruesome way to go six feet under. The idea of becoming nothing but a crushed pebble of blood in the air before turning into a little red cloud and raining blood on the futon he was setting up on the floor wasn't exactly what she would call pleasant.

She gulped slightly at what his current course of action could mean.

"W-what's the f-futon for?" For the first time in an hour she spoke. The question came out as a stuttering jumble, and the blonde haired kunoichi winced at the fear present in her voice. She knew enough of the world to know what fate might await her as a female, unlike Sakura she had no disillusions that there would be a white shining knight to save her every time she got into trouble.

Naruto looked up from where he was setting up the bedding, looking at his ...sister in question. He kept up his Kaguya Shindan the entire time they were traveling, always training with it whenever he could. By doing so he was capable of reading the emotions that she felt. Why should she fell fear when up untill now she only displayed to be tired, confused and slightly grouchy at his apparent lack of verbal communication.

It was when his eyes widened in realization. Pointing towards the futon, he quickly answered with a raised eyebrows at her."Ah! No! It's nothing like that! Such a naughty mind that you have kunoichi-chan.''

That was supposed to be a tease from him, he had to break the ice somehow.

Sadly witnessing the destruction caused by the Kyuubi and finding out that his family was dead, and then being raised by a stubborn and old hermited man who would rather sleep the days over or occasionally listen to the sounds of nature than engage in verbal conversations with a child because he was not soft, has made him socially awkward sometimes. The added reality of living in isolation because the man didn't want to risk causing damage to innocencts when he tried to control the demon within him and that the man actually spent most of the time alone meant that Naruto was most often left alone to train and it didn't help his social skills all that much.

Naruto had been traveling the world alone on his own for the last three years and avoided unnecessary contact with people. He still kept in touch with Roshi and had a weird relationship with the man's niece, Kaiya.

Kaiya was a cruel girl with a sadistic streak of liking to cut people up when fighting them but besides that was a good enough person who was loyal to her beliefs and the village she loved. The added benefit was that she was very good in the sack. The Iwa kunoichi was his 'rival with benefits', something she called their relationship once in a joking manner when he wondered what were they supposed to be. They weren't a couple but were more than friends.

It was amusing that she considered them rivals since she was nowhere near his skill or power level and he doubted that she ever will be, but for a jonin she was strong enough with a good grasp on her ninjutsu. The last time he had heard of her she was supposed to lead an assault on Konoha with a small contingent of 200 men after the Suna Oto invasion had weakened Konoha.

How did he manage to end up with her in such a relationship was a slight mystery with rather obvious answers when you thought about it. He remembered that he went with her to a party, as a mercenary ninja and that it had something to do with sake, lots of sake. After the 6th bottle he couldn't remember anything besides laughing and...well that was it. He had woken up the next morning with a very good feeling of being deep throated by said woman. Who in their right mind would have stooped her.

''I just thought that since we are going to have to talk'' he made a sweeping gesture with his hand. ''I'd set up the futons so we can be a bit more comfortable." Natsuko, coming out of a bad blush at his accusation felt her fears dispersing as she followed his arm movements.

The room that they were in was a small and simple one, with no seating or furniture and just enough room for two people to sleep comfortably apart. The cheap type that anyone with a job could afford since they didn't have many visitors. People didn't mind.

''Oh..'' she muttered under her breath, feeling slightly guilty at simply assuming he would force himself on her just because they were in the same room. Deciding to be at least a bit helpful and hopefully put that incident behind she started setting up the second futon for herself. This had the added benefit of helping her calm down from her fears.

A minute later when she was finished with setting it up, she threw back her hair that had gotten in front of her eyes and turned around. From there she sat down with her legs crossed, facing the other occupant of the room.

There was just two feet separating them now and she could see his face more clearly in the light. Despite the rather confidant and calm impression she had gained about him in the last hour of silence, she was quite surprised to see that he seemed to be… nervous?

The man looked at her square in the eyes. Taking a deep breath, he addressed her. The conversation that followed would change her life and the fate of the Elemental Nations, forever.

''My name is Uzumaki Naruto...and we need to talk''


	3. The Uzumaki Sob Story

**AN**: At first I was going to give a single large review shoutout to a guest who didn't seem to read the story all that well and decided to give random and totally stupid questions that were either already explained in the summary of Naruto's life or were just so idiotic that I made sure that forgot them, but then I told myself that I don't need to do it. I don't know about you, but I **hate** reading Review Shoutouts at the beginning of the chapter. ANs can deal with, but reading 30 shoutouts every fricking time gets annoying after a while. So if you want any questions about the plot to be answered or you are confused with something, then make a damn account. It barely takes 5 minutes to do so. Only once will I be doing it, and it's at the bottom of the chapter.

**ARC I:** Baby Steps

Lost Family / Generic Training

**_Ch 3: _**_The Uzumaki Sob Story_

* * *

_PLAY:_**Madara Uchiha Theme - The God Awakened**

_...Uzumaki Naruto...Uzumaki Naruto...Uzumaki Naruto_

This broken record like repetition of two words is the only thing one, most likely a Yamanaka clan member through the usage of their family techniques would have heard if they ventured, at this exact moment into the dangerous place called Natsuko's mind, a vast database filled with plans and schemes for elaborate pranks and the general ideas of causing chaos all over Konoha that some of the other villages would have paid their annual income two times over quite dearly for if they ever found out about it's existence. Nothing like a determined prankster from the Uzumaki clan to find all the ways to cause damage to the village.

And this particular clan name was the source of replays. UZUMAKI Naruto

It was only these two words, these two little and oh so casual words that had caused a short circuiting of Natsuko's brain. It was these two mere words that were enough to completely bring her brain activity to a complete halt. Even after 10 seconds of silence, these two words were still the only thing on the young girl's mind after her handsome saviour finished with his sentence.

The blue eyed, blonde haired host of the fearsome and landscape demolishing Nine Tailed Demon Fox was in a state of trance, and as Naruto sat across from her in a dogeza position on his futon and waited patiently for the loud reaction that would undoubtedly follow after her brain rebooted, he had no doubts in his mind that if a light breeze swept through the area right at that moment, which was highly unlikely but would have been hilarious, that his little and very much alive sister would have fallen down flat the moment the small gust of wind hit her form.

After about another 20 seconds of dead and promulgating silence that caused Naruto to feel even more nervous that he already was, the stillness of the sound was thankfully broken as rain began to pour on the outside. Shaking his head away from any shortsightings that he had thought about doing right now in an effort to escape the gut wrenching emotion, the male Uzumaki with whisker marks on his cheeks and red hair on his head diverted his gaze away from the girl's wide baby blues.

Looking away from her he focused towards the window and the rain outside, finding the symphony of rain to have a rather odd but welcome calming effect on him. Hidden within the warm confines of their rented room, Naruto sat and waited.

Patiently he waited for her to react in some way, shape or form to his words, each second feeling more like one long excruciating hour. It was only after one more added minute, that did Natsuko finally slap herself out of her conscious unconsciousness with a sudden jerk of her pretty little blonde head. Naruto turned to look back at her when she did so, and the gaze that she level at him made the 20 year old man highly self conscious at that moment.

The amount of loneliness and desperate hope in her eyes did not need an expert at reading human emotions to watch, and he found his hatred for the village growing by the second. What could have happened for her to be so desperate for family.

If Sarutobi did trick him like he suspected right now into keeping his little sister within the village walls, the the old monkey surely must have done his best to make her life as nice and sweet as he could have possibly done, since her rather glaring lack of combat skills meant that he did not, in fact train her to be one more tool for the village, a brainwashed fool who thought that fulfilling the Will of Fire meant sacrificing their lives with wide grins on their faces for a bunch of brick walls and houses.

After a few more silent seconds, Natsuko finally decided to say something, but as she did so, she found her own emotions boiling within her at the thought that she wasn't alone in the world, that she wasn't a simple orphan anymore. So her words came out rather meekly, a stark contrast to the bull headed and rash girl that she was barely a week ago.

''A..are you r-really an..an...Aan Uzuma..ki'' the young girl asked with a desperate grip on his words, like a drunk man clung to bottle or a drowning man clutched a piece of flotsam with a desperate need to survive.

Her eyes, those beautiful and creamy looking blue eyes held such an amount of hope and an equal measure of loneliness in them that Naruto found his temper growing much faster than anything he had ever remember in his life. He clenched his hands by his sides, making an effort to stay put and not simple spring into air like a spring with a snarl.

His knuckles soon turned bony white, the pressure exerted on them exceeding anything a normal shinobi could ever reach. The fabric of his pants actually started to groan at some point as he grabbed the piece of fabric while his anger boiled within him like a volcano about to violently erupt.

It took all of his willpower and the training he had received from the Old Man Roshi not to let his chakra boil over within his coils and have him simply go on a war path towards the village in his 4 tailed form, despite the fact that he had sealed such a state away himself, only giving him control over chakra in different ways, more precise, more subtle.

Becouse if he didn't, he was sure that he would have bulldozed his way towards Konoha, not caring of anyone that got in his way untill the village was nothing but a mess of smouldering ashes of charcoal and dried bones of the dead beneath his feet.

Let it be known that Naruto's love was far more accursed than the Uchiha clan's Curse of Hatred could ever be, and it was not by his own fault that it was so. The little girl did not see this reactions, her mind already moving at speeds that she had never though at before. Could it really be true that he was an Uzumaki. Did he know her. Was is true that she now had some sort of family in this world, that she wasn't all alone no longer.

''Do...do I really have...a family'' her question was nothing but a soft whisper in the moist air of rain, but they did manage to break her brother from his vengeful thoughts of leveling Konoha and completing what the Kyuubi had started over 12 years ago. The girl before him, his little sister was in a very, very vulnerable state right now, and he would have to deal with this first before he thought of sating his vengeful mind.

When he still had something to live for, nothing else in the world mattered to him more than family as was the Uzumaki way. Naruto would have gladly and rather gleefully set the world aflame for his loved ones. If it meant protecting his precious people, Naruto would have bathed in the blood of innocents, women and children alike and let everyone scorn him for his deeds, but as long as his family was safe then he would have died with a smile on his face that could put anyone else's to shame.

He was both the same and different from Uchiha Itachi. While they both held incredible love for their loved ones and would sacrifice everything to protect what they valued, they had one major difference.

To Itachi, nothing else mattered more in this world then the village.

While the young Uchiha 'traitor' could never kill his younger brother, the man would always be loyal to Konoha first and foremost. If he had the choice between saving Konoha and accepting the hatred that his brother would carry for the place at a later date, then he would choose the Village Hidden in the Leaves over the young Uchiha anyday.

As for Naruto. He wouldn't even bat an eyelash at anyone who dared to threaten his family, he would have simply killed them like the trash that they were in his eyes no matter who they were.

It was a testament to both their tragic lives and different upbringings, as well as the different sets of thoughts and minds that two people so alike, could be so different in the end.

Steeling himself for any outcome that might come out of this conversation, whatever it meant that his sister would curse his name till the end of the world or that he could finally become a part of her live, Naruto gave the younger child of Uzumaki Kushina a sad smile, filled with melancholy.

''Yes...you have a family''

His words brough a very potent reaction out of the younger Uzumaki. It was like a switch has been turned inside her. With speed that Naruto could barely track even with his eyes, eyes that were trained to perfection and could follow all but the fastest man in this world, the girl launched herself from where she was siting with the power of a rocket during blast off.

Her little undeveloped female body, untrained and not kept in a peak condition due to her unhealthy diet collided with Naruto's muscled frame with the power of an Akimichi smack down after you made the mistake od calling them fat, proving itself far more powerful that the balance Naruto had. As a result, she pushed both of them over Naruto's rear and the man onto his back.

Like a damn breaking after a crack formed within the barricade and the pressure plowed through, Natsuko started to cry. She sobbed her heart out in a mixture of sadness and joy as her little nad unblemished hands held onto the man like a lifeline that would disappear as soon as she let go.

At that moment, the Kyuubi's Jinchuriki didn't think if the man before her could be tricking her or not, nor even why was she all alone up untill now if she had a family out there. She simply lay there on his chest and cried, and once the man wrapped his much larger arms around her, she felt something for the first time in her life.

She felt protected and safe, like nothing could ever harm her. It felt...good, really good.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Before the well hidden location of the following scene is disclosed to the general audience, there is an important question to be asked of you all. The question of: what is rain?

The scientific answer to the asked question would be that rain is liquid water in the form of droplets that have condensed from atmospheric water vapor and then precipitated—that is, become heavy enough to fall under gravity. Rain is a major component of the water cycle and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water in the Elemental Nations. It provides suitable conditions for many types of ecosystems, as well as crop irrigation.

Then there are other ways to describe the rain, with some of them capable of tugging at your heart and soul. It is the mist, pattering above a quiet alcove and bringing the scent of wonderment and renewal to the noses of animals and humans alike. The drops of water on your skill are like soft pelts of cool refreshing moisture laced with minerals that seep inside you and hydrate one within their mortal and physical shell. To know rain is to appreciate it's deliverence of eternal life, doing so though nourishing the earth beneath the heavenly cloud cover to bring forth fruits so sweet, baths so cleansing, and thirst so quenching that it could bring tears to one's eyes. Rain is a friend with many attributes that will give mercifully, but can also take vengefully through the wrath of mother nature. One should respect the rain and its system of ebbs and flows upon this plane of existence, for the rain can mean the difference between new life, and a stale death.

What would it mean to reflect emotions, to express and appreciate the woes of heart through this natural occurrence within the ever lasting cycle of life. Is it Happy? Happy rain would mean that life is to bloom, bringing peace within when you looked at the bodies of droplets racing down your window. Rain would then be fresh from heaven, tip-tapping happily as it descended on the ground below, dancing on the grass.

Standing like a stone statue that was not affected by time or nature atop a metal balcony of the tallest building and staring at the tower's of steel and other metals that made up the buildings of his village, a man wearing black robes with red clouds decorating them leaned his head back in order to gaze at the murky clouds floating above Amegakure no Sato, the Village Hidden by the Rain.

Like a cloak of energy, an invisible force field wrapped around his form, shielding it from the tears of heavens that never ceased. Many thoughts raced through his head, not all of them receiving equal attention, but one of them stood above all others.

This man had seen with his very own eyes, the dangers that mankind had created to destroy itself. Their species was set on auto destruction, and deliverance was needed for them all. He would gladly give it. Not once did he blink, his eyes a pair of elaborate purples glowing with the power held within them. His eyes were the eyes to the change of the world, and by his might there will be understanding amongst humans.

Rain always fell above his village. Some people of his village said that it represented the heavens sorrow for their land, and so the sky always cried for their misery. The clouds shed them in sadness to the devastation that his people have lived through the past wars and the destruction that will continue to plague them until the day that peace reigned supreme across the lands.

''Pain...'' The female and soft voice of his companion through life and death reached his ears. ''It is time to assemble''

There would come the day that humanity would know what Pain truly is. Through shared pain they will learn to put aside their petty differences under the threat of further loss. That was his ambition, to bring peace to the world through shared understanding and his name reflected off it.

''Is it truly?'' the man responded, his face never once showing a tint of emotions, because there was no greater emotion besides Pain.

Pain of loss, pain of death, pain of loneliness, pain of wounds, pain of words, pain of heart, mind, body and soul. Pain affected and reigned over them all.

The woman who materialised behind him in a flurry of papers said nothing. Instead she simply floated there like gravity meant absolutely nothing to her, her torso and head hovering above ground while straps of paper seemed to peel of her, like she was shedding skin. Did I mention she had no legs, like at all.

She did not react when the man turned his gaze towards her, nodding without actually doing it. She had known Pain since they were little children studying under Jiraya sensei and could tell what he wanted to say or do without him ever needing to express himself. Their bond was that strong.

''Shall we assemble?'' Pain asked, the soul made God amongst men turning his violet orbs back towards the sight of the village he ruled over. It was his kingdom of understanding where he reigned supreme as God.

His people have reached understanding due to the wars that scarred their land, due to the losses and deaths inflicted upon them by the other shinobi villages and even their past ruler Hanzo the Salamander, that have been afflicted on them either from men's greed of power and lands, paranoia of betrayal or because of petty squabbles over egos and who had the biggest stick between the Five Great Hidden Villages.

Turning around for the last time on that day, the orange haired man with piercings walked into his tower's confines, utterly dry as if he hadn't just spent 4 hours in the rain.

One day, all of world would share the same pain and reach understanding.

But it was not yet time for such a thing. His forces would wait and bide their time, until they had the might to bring peace to the world through destruction of life. Just a few more years. He could wait.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Located somewhere deep within what is known as the most secure and isolated piece of land, the territory of Amegakure no Sato there was one very special cave. It wasn't considered special because it was a place of natural beauty that captivated the eyes of the beholder.

It was a cold and desolate cave, protected by vast arrays of defenses that even the greatest of infiltrators wouldn't be able to get past them without resorting to the highest forms of time-space ninjutsu.

DRIP

DRIP

DROP

Water slowly dripped like miniature rain from the spiky ceiling. One look at them and a man would have believed them to be simply waiting, waiting like a predator for the right moment to strike, just when you stepped underneath them, only to die a painful and unexpected death via impalement of your body.

The cave was expectantly moist and cold, which only added to the oppressive and haunted atmosphere that hung in it. The fear of devourment seeped into the rock beneath, like there was an unexplainable amount of madness in the air, only waiting for you to become it's next meal. The hunger was humongous, one would say insatiable. It was all provided by the visage of dried up and twisted, husk looking statue with chained hands in shackles.

The two hands were uncurled upwards and fingers pointing skyward in a grim position, as if the statue was going through some sort of torture in the moment it was created and the only relief it had was through those fingers. The giant, earthen-coloured humanoid entity had most of its body looking decayed. It has nine closed eyes that looked eerie in the dark. Its back also has a number of spike-like protrusions in the back and front.

Atop one of those fingers within the darkness, which was only mildly lessened by the low light of an illumination seal in front of the large sealing statue, something shimmered into existence, a spark of light.

Pallets of rainbow shone with a low light taking shape in a span of a single moment, until with a dark and negative flourish seeping into the colour, a human shape of a tall form appeared.

It's appearance was an astral image, with the ever occasional shimmering of the projection already adding to it's metaphysical properties.

More of such astral projections followed after it, all of them forming atop one of the statue's gnarly fingers, untill there were nine of them. Everyone waited for several seconds untill the last member appeared before them, some of them in anticipation, most of them in a droll annoyance.

But after waiting for over 30 seconds, one man sighed in the silence. This caused 8 out of the 9 astrals to look towards the left middle finger, or more specifically the man standing tall atop that finger, his astral projection gazing at all of them coolly like there was nothing wrong with their lack of a tenth member.

Finally, one of them, a tall man with a shark like appearance decided to voice the thoughts shared by the eight of them. ''Ehh..Kakuzu, where's Tojiro. Did the twit forget that we were supposed to meet now?'' The man in reality had dark blue skin and two rows of sharp teeth, one at the top and one at the bottom of his mouth, a trait shared by all of the 7 legendary Swordsmen of the Hidden Mist.

The figure didn't do much, only offering an astral deadpan, if such a thing was possible. ''Tojiro annoyed me, so I killed him'' he explained like there was nothing wrong with that. In his current company of co-workers, such a thing wouldn't have been far fetched.

Nobody said anything, not until another, younger voice called through the darkness. ''So, how long was it since we've all come together like this?''

That voice belonged to a male member of their organization, who in reality had blonde hair and wore a magnification device on his eye, but while he was a guy such a thing was hard to guess from simply an astral projection with his looks alone, which could be taken for a girl's ones any day of the week.

''**Not since Orochimaru left us**'' another voice cut through the void but it carried a dark tint it, only alerting the his split personalities. It was a man colored half white and half black down the middle of his body and looked like he was part plant, especially with his abnormal Venus fly trap appearance.

Another voice came from the individual, only much smoother and less aggressive than the first. ''And now, Orochimaru has the Sharingan'' Most of the members haven't heard about that piece of news, and all but the shark looking man, and the initial astral projection looked towards the Murderer of the Uchiha Clan, the young and stoic Uchiha Itachi.

A hunchback astral projection droned out with a raspy and gruff voice, partially incredulous about that piece of information. ''Is that true Itachi, that your little brother went to the Snake''

The stoic image of Uchiha Itachi didn't react to the hunchback's question, but on the inside he was whacking his brain. He simply nodded, not sure what to say about that. His little brother truly was foolish for trusting the snake sannin, it would be his undoing one of these days.

''Un...then when the time comes to get that snake, I guess I'll kill the last Uchiha as well'' the blonde haired man, but black projection said, a murderous grin slowly forming on his face as he rubbed his hands together fervently. Itachi's eyes flickered towards him for only a moment that no one but their leader spotted, before turning back to his aloof stare.

''Don't be impatient Deidara. We will deal with our old friend Orochimaru in due time'' his partner, the hunchback male who really hated waiting for anything but could be patient in the grand scheme of things admonished, not really caring about the fame of killing an Uchiha. He had no use for their eyes, but the white snake's corpse could become a powerful puppet in his collection.

''Un, you are no fun Sasori-senpai'' the man apparently called Deidara whined at his elder partner and fellow artist like a small child denied his candy, crossing his arms with a huff. Of course his partner's art was not true art, for true art was not eternal. It was a fleeting moment, an explosion of colours and destruction that passes within a second.

The leader, tired of all of this needles information spoke, his violet orbs glancing at both artist for a moment before focusing towards the half man half plant male. ''Enough Deidara, Sasori. We have gathered here not for these matters. Zetsu what have you learned.''

''Oh, okay okay'' Zetsu's white half nodded in a spur of childishness. ''I''

''**We**'' Zetsu's black half interjected indignantly.

''Have identified who are the Jinchuriki of the Ichibi, Nibi and Rokubi, the few that we didn't know about who and where they were...'' Zetsu stooped, thinking about something within that strange mind of his, letting the other's take the floor.

''Good then. Because of Orochimaru we only have 5 years in which to prepare before he takes the Uchiha as his host'' The leader said and all of the members besides Itachi, who was always as stoic as a stone, nodded showing that they understood.

Kisame's picture hefted his sword on his shoulder as he grinned at the man. ''Mah...We all know what we are supposed to be doing already'' he snickered as he gestured towards Zetsu. '' Just tell us who are these Jinchuriki are''

''Of course, the One Tails-'' The white half started but was stopped when the black half blurted out the interesting piece of information that he wanted to say in an annoyed tone. ''**The Leaf banished the Nine Tails's Jinchuriki.**''

Everyone stopped whatever their astral projections were doing while the plant man reported and stared at him, believing that he was saying a joke.

Kisame pipped in first. ''Hah..you serious? You hear that Itachi!'' the man said as he looked towards his partner. ''Our job has just become much easier. How hard could it be to find that brat now.'' The two artist mumbled something under their breaths that was missed by the others as Kisame spoke.

Itachi only looked at Zetsu with an apathetic gaze, intrigued at the news offered but glad that he will not have to cause problems to his village anymore. With the Uzumaki girl out of the village, the Hidden Leaf will be safer and not prone to an attack of the Akatsuki. It would give his brother time to prepare himself, untill the day he had awakened the Mangekyo Sharingan and set to kill Madara.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Back to the village inside the borders of the Land of Fire and inside the small Inn room, Naruto, oblivious to the meeting taking place concerning his sister's fate patted her gently over her back.

''Shh shh shhh'' he 'shsh-ed' into her ear with a low voice as he gave her what comfort he could in her- now time of need.

The comfort that he, as her older brother and protector should have been giving her for nearly 13 years.

The girl's breathing was getting steadier as time passed and her cries were getting more quieter, which was a good sign in his books. Still he did his best to quicken the process.

''He-hey now. Don't cry.'' He told her with a soft voice as he slowly and gently removed his sister from his body, having already gotten himself and her seated upright within the last 10 minutes of her cries. He had to do it, much to his annoyance as he rather liked holding her in his arms now that he could, like he should have been, but he needed her to have a clear head and listen to him before anything else could be done.

Natsuko sniffed as he set her down in front of him and looked up with tear leaked eyes. She placed the fact that he had managed to lift her without problem in the back of her mind. The guy was strong, stronger than Kakashi and maybe even Jiraya. She had not seen the old coot fight much and the only fighting done on his side in the Sannin Showdows was summoning a toad to fight for him and messing up jutsus.

She looked at her savior once more and the whiskered red head smiled at her, bringing his left hand up to her face and gently removing the tears of it.

''Pretty girls like you shouldn't cry like that, right?'' he asked and soon she nodded in conceit, calming herself and slowly getting her head straight. Naruto did nothing besides telling her how to calm down and ease her breathing and within the next five minutes Natsuko looked like she didn't even cry before, looking at her _clansman?_, in curiosity.

Naruto sighed tiredly as he saw this. He knew that it was time for him to tell her what happened, but he couldn't help but fear for her reaction. He really hoped with all of his soul that she will not hate him. He could live through it, but his jaded heart wouldn't be able to take it if she did, not anymore.

Not after he had just gotten her back.

"I'm not sure how best to explain…" Naruto started to speak and stopped when he reached the first snag not even a minute into his speech, searching for the right words to say to the distressed but calm girl.

Unfortunately, he had no idea how to begin with it in the first place. Making some wild hand gestures he added. "...this."

Natsuko sweatdroped. That came off horribly lame in her eyes.

The red haired male sitting in front of her sighed yet again before resuming with a calm voice. "I'm just going to tell you about… well me! OK?" a voice that turned a little rabid at the end there.

For his strange acting he earned several blinks from Natsuko. The girl opened her mouth to say something to her apparent clan and family member. Finding herself short of words and not quite sure what to say herself she closed it again and just gave a sharp nod.

Maybe this was going to be like the introduction that Kakashi-sen... that Kakashi did when they first met.

Clapping his hands together Naruto looked at his little sister with nervous but resolute eyes. The very much alive and breathing sister that was supposed to be resting peacefully, her body dead in her mother's embrace who was also as dead as a corpse could be.

"OK! Well I guess I'll start with my mother, she was a kunoichi of Uzugakure no Sato when it was attacked by the Kiri-Kumo alliance about 2 decades ago.'' He began with his tale, the girl in front of him listening intently to his words but slowly finding herself loosing her focus.

''As I'm sure you know that was the start of third great shinobi war and very few Uzu-nin escaped the attack.'' He didn't wait for her to respond with a yes or no, continuing to give her his short explanation as he touched his chin with his left pointy finger, not noticing the confused stare he was getting.

Natsuko had no idea of when and which war started, she didn't care about all of that. That was ancient history in her eyes, who cared about that? All she knew wad that Yondaime kicked ass in the last war and that was it.

''My mother was one of those few. She eventually managed to reach Konohagakure no Sato and was granted asylum by the Hokage, but she didn't fight in the war since she had recently given birth to me. When I was born she decided to raise me rather than give me over to an orphanage like many kunoichi did and still do to this day. Luckily the war was pretty much over by the time she would have returned to active duty so she didn't have to worry about being called to the front lines and spent most of her time with me''

Naruto looked at the wall behind Natsuko's back and his eyes became unfocused as he got lost in the happy and nearly forgotten memories of his younger days. His childhood was a great one, with a mother who loved him with all her heart and good friends, when he was still oblivious to the horrors of the world. Because of these memories, he missed his sister's reaction.

One again, Natsuko found herself jealous of others for their happiness, wondering why did other deserve something she didn't. Oh, she knew it was wrong to think like that but it happened nonetheless.

She never got to know who her parents were, having been told that she was an orphan from the start. The Kyuubi no Yoko's attack did a number on Konoha and they could have either died in the aftermath or refused to take her since she carried the demon.

Removing the finger from his chin Naruto continued to talk as he looked back at her, wincing at the way she seemed sad at the topic of parents, so she wasn't adopted like he hoped she was. This was the third strike for Sarutobi. He will make sure that the man feels pain even in afterlife now.

''After a few years she met Namikaze Minato, the Yondaime Hokage and they started dating.'' – he consciously ignored her awed look ''I never really liked the guy but I guess that was mostly because I didn't want to share my kaa-chan with him, so to speak. A year or so later they got married in secret and a year later she was pregnant. Now I still didn't like my stepfather much but the idea of having a little brother or sister was great!'' he looked at her intently and she once again felt as his eyes were piercing her soul. _'Why was that'_ she wondered.

''Since the age of 5 I was being trained by my Kaa-san in the ways of ninja. By the time she got pregnant again I was 8 years old and about low to mid chunin in both skill and power. Since I always wanted to protect her and later my sister I begged one of her guards to train me.'' Natsuko seemed amused by the picture of him begging other ninja to teach him but was failing to see the point of it all. Still not having learned how to read the underneath into stuff she missed the glaring problem of his mother not being known if she married the Yondaime.

''Reluctantly the man did so and about 6 months into her pregnancy I learned how to do'' chakra surged into his hand and without the need for hand signs electricity cackled in it. ''..this''

His hand sparked into a familiar technique, illuminating the area in a ghoulish pale blue as a sound, akin to thousands of birds chirping reached their ears. Both of them gazed at the Lightning Cutter in the palm of his hand with different thoughts untill Naruto let it out, looking at Natsuko again. And crossing his hands over his knees.

''Then on October 10th the Nine Tailed Fox attacked the village'' he informed her with a flat tone that sounded dead to her. Despite the man before her not showing any sings of aggression towards her yet, Natsuko found herself nervous and self conscious with fear.

Her heart almost stopped when he looked at her in the eyes.

''Tell me Uzumaki Natsuko, what do you know about the Kyuubi and sealing bijus'' he stared at her belly as he intersected his fingers together. It gave death to any and all of her hope that he was oblivious to the burden that she carried. Pushing her fears behind her well practiced mask of happiness that she pulled out when her emotions wavered, she gave the older Uzumaki a thoughtful look.

''Well...I know that there are at least 2 biju in the world and that they are both sealed. The Ichibi was sealed while Gaara was still in his mother's womb while the Kyuubi was sealed within a newborn during the attack'' she fumbled with her hitai-ate that was still present on her head, wondering why did she even still wear it.

Naruto shivered when she told him how the Ichibi was sealed while the child was still in his mothers womb. The idea was ludicrous and it came with so many problems that it wasn't even worth trying to count them. Besides that, Sunagakure no Sati had the lowest quality sealers in all of the nations, even the smaller ones. The mother must have died during childbirth, poor thing.

''That...was a disturbing piece of information'' He commented with a small nod, before asking another question. ''How many times was the Kyuubi sealed?''

Natsuko blinked, never expecting such a ludicrous question to be asked of her. Because of that her mouth worked faster than her brain and she answered without even knowing she was talking. ''Once?''

Naruto shook his head at her answer giving her an uneasy feeling within her gut for an odd reason. That was the 4th strike for Sarutobi. He brought up his hand and showed her three fingers for her to see. ''No, it was sealed three times.'' The red head informed the golden head.

Pulling down one finger he stated. ''The first time it was sealed was 3 years after Konohagakure no Sato was formed within one Uzumaki Mito, the wife of Senju Hashirama'' his sister gave him what the citizens of the Leaf affectionately named Th_e Nara Dear caught in a genjutsu look._

''Senju who?'' she blurted out finding both pieces of information interesting. The only Senju she knew of was Tsunade and she wondered who this Mito was, even if she was connected by blood with the previous host, like ancestor and descendant. Okay, maybe not in those exact words, but you get the point.

Naruto gave her an incredulous look, how in the pure world's name did she not know that. With a lean of his head he explained as simply as one could ''The Shodaime Hokage...'' He let the words hang in the air as he stared at the girl, seeing even more if his mother in her at that moment. Natsuko rubbed the back of her neck nervously as she blushed pinkly under his stare. ''Oh- hehe history never really was my thing''

''Yes, I can see that'' Naruto droned out, perplexed how she didn't even know the name of the past Hokage, not even the founder, THE FOUNDER of Konohagakure no Sato. Did the Academy standards really fall down that low in the time that he was gone. Although he never officially graduated from it, he did attend there when his mother was on missions before he left the village.

And because of that, he knew just how much they insisted about their all so glorious history, even in the times of war when the main goal was to crank out as many soldiers as they could for the front lines.

He ignored the offending glare leveled his way from her and ticked off another finger as he looked at her. ''When the time came for the seal holding the Kyuubi in Mito-sama to break she insisted that the Kyuubi be sealed within her own village. Uzushio was a peaceful village that wouldn't try and use a Jinchuriki in a war like the other villages already tried to do conventionally, as weapons of mass destruction.'' the tidbits about her apparent clan and the history about the Kyuubi intrigued the girl so she listened to his words.

''My mother was the one chosen for this'' -once again ignoring her gasps ''since the Uzumaki clan's chakra Kekkai Genkai was strongest in her, which would allow her to keep the beast under lock and key for a very long time. The clan never really tried to do anything with it other than to keep it under chains so she wasn't considered a weapon or an asset, just as another clan member''

Natsuko's eyes widened the moment he said his mother was the second sacrifice. If she was supposed to keep it secured than how did- ''But if the Kyuubi was held by your mother''

''- Uzumaki Kushina'' she deserved to know her mother's name

''by her, then how did it attack the village''

Naruto gave her a sour smile as he ticked his last finger half-way, leaving only the proximal phalanges bone stuck out of his hand towards the ceiling ''My mother was giving birth to my little sister when someone attacked her. I don't know who it was since I didn't see him until it was to late, but he had killed all of her ANBU guards without being detected before using my sister as a hostage. My father-in-law tried to attack him and the man placed explosive tags on my baby sister. Minato-teme then teleported both myself and my sister to the safe house prepared beforehand, leaving my mother behind, undefended at the attacker's mercy'' his eyes hardened and Natsuko would have jumped back in fear of his lashing out, but the smile he was still giving her, although sour put her at ease.

''As you probably know the only way to permanently defeat a Bijuu is by sealing it and from Sanbi upwards the only thing that can contain such power and not shatter is a newborn child, according to the people. That was a lie, but the easiest way to make a weapon is to use a child as they can learn how to wield the power since birth, as their chakra coils adapted to the influx of demonic chakra.'' his words hurt Natsuko, who hoped that this was not how the Yondaime saw her when he used her to seal the demon instead of his own daughter.

''Even better at controlling the demons within are children of Jinchuriki, called pseudo Jinchuriki, like I myself am.'' Naruto informed her. It was true. Since the child was exposed to the demon's chakra either as an egg or a semen, it already had connection with the beast on genetic levels, allowing them easier access to the power of the beasts. Naruto sometimes idly wondered how dangerous would the child of two Jinchuriki be.

Natsuko gasped at the piece of news that he was partial Jinchuriki. Wow she was doing that a lot lately in his presence. She shivered however when his chakra turned malicious, and if she was ever asked she would have sworn that a strange silhouette formed behind her brother in that moment. ''My bastard father-in-law decided that he couldn't ask another to sacrifice their child so he used my sister.''

He took a deep breath and stared into her eyes as she caught up to the meaning of his words.

"The girl's name was Natsuko, Uzumaki Natsuko."

Natsuko's eyes widened and her jaw dropped. She wasn't stupid, far from it in fact. She had followed everything he said, even though she hadn't seen what it was leading to. But this? She could never have guessed this! She had always wanted to know if she had family. She hadn't even known if Uzumaki was her real name! And now she was talking to her brother?

Well, half-brother according to his story.

She felt anger welling up in her, were the hell had he been? Where was he when she cried tears of sadness because no one wanted to play with her or their parents chased her off. Where the hell was he when she cried herself to sleep hoping that it was all a nightmare and would soon wake up to her parent's voices.

Before she could explode at him he continued his story, unaware of her boiling emotions.

"Minato-teme took Natsuko-chan away from my arms using his Hiraishin no Jutsu (Flying Thunder God). I couldn't do anything to stop him. I ran as fast as I could and by the time I reached my sister, the bastard had placed her on a sacrificial shrine and was sealing the beast into her, dying in the process because the jutsu invoked the Death God to this plane of existance'' The Dead Demon Consuming Seal is a seal developed by the Uzumaki clan. It invokes the power of a spectral entity known as the Shinigami that can only be seen when it grasps one's soul. Once called upon, the Shinigami hovers behind the user and wraps its left arm with prayer beads, uttering some unintelligible chanting, and after some time a cursed seal appears on its arm.

The soul of the summoner is then partially separated from the body and restrained by the Shinigami's hair as it thrusts its arm into the user's chest to grab the soul of its target. At the user's command, the Shinigami then performs the sealing by dragging the target's soul into the user whose stomach is branded with the seal's mark. However, the sealing is double-edged as the user's soul is devoured by the Shinigami along with the target's, both souls trapped for all eternity within the fiend's stomach.

Naruto had no problem with that last bit, because if the man survived than Naruto would have found a way to deal a fate far more crueler than rotting in the belly of the Death God for all of time. Extreme, very, but Naruto and his chakra were very special because of the way he was conceived, not that he knew about it.

The red head continued with his explanations on the matter, and Natsuko watched as he willed tears away, feeling more and more emphatic towards the man as he continued to describe the events of the night.

''After that, I took my sister from him and took her back to the safe house, where I cleaned her up and made sure she was okay. When I woke up she wasn't where I left her so I dashed straight to the Hokage tower to find out what had happened and to take custody of my imouto-chan." Naruto's expression became desperate as his eyes started watering up, unable to hold back the pain that a simple memory brought back.

His voice cracked as he spoke and Natsuko felt her anger at the man wither. She could almost feel his heartbreak and sadness, it was soul shattering. She felt tears start to build in her own eyes as he labored on. "When I got there Sarutobi told me that she had died shortly after the sealing. I asked to see the body and he showed me. He said that she was a hero who had given her life for Konoha and that I should be proud.''

He gave a crocked smile and hallow cackle, the light of his cobalt blue eyes becoming insane for just one moment '' 'pfft' Bastard! He said he'd give me a moment alone, as soon as he left the room I sealed her body with kaa-chan and made a run for it. I had already planned on leaving Konoha with you so I had everything with me.'' he scratched the area over his heart as his hands squeezed tighter once more.

''Not even three days later I was caught by the ROOT ANBU, the same ones that you fought and tried to fight them. I killed two out of four with dumb luck and using some Kyuubi's chakra'' this time it was him hickuping as he remember his past ''But I couldn't kill the other two and was saved by a passing stranger that took me in and trained me how to control the Foxes chakra.''

''Since then I have been training and lately have been wandering the Elemental Nations, doing jobs and favors for my employer, learning new things as I went on. And now I've meet you. I swear if I had known you were alive I would have come back for you, even if I had to destroy all of Konoha to get you.''

He hunched forwards, his face set in horror as he kept repeating the same mantra over and over. ''But I didn't know. I didn't know." His voice trailed off at the eight repetition and became nothing more than whispers as he rocked up and down a little, droplets of tears falling from his eyes.

Natsuko frowned both at his story and the revelations that came with it, as well at the way he seemed to be devastated right now after finishing. She gingerly and trepidly approached his rocking figure on her knees. Coming to a halt with his head near her lap, she awkwardly reached out and patted him on the back, reversing their roles from a few moments ago.

"So… you're my nii-san?" He nods yes as he took a deep breath, mucus and sniffles being drawn back into his nose. Finding strength out of the blue, the man bolted towards her, wrapping her into his arms and hugging the death out of here as if his life depended on it.

''I'm sorry, I didn't know.-...I didn't know''

Tears poured down both of their cheeks as she buried her face in his chest once again.

She knew he was telling her the truth, she almost always knew when someone was lying. It was the main reason she had stopped asking the Sandaime if he knew her parents, she didn't want to hear lies from one of the only people who was kind to her.

Naruto held her close as tears silently slid from his eyes. He cried tears of sadness for all the years that had been stolen from them, tears of happiness for being reunited with his imouto-chan. And perhaps a few tears of compassion for anyone who would try to harm her in the future because it would be the last thing they did before he shredded their body into a bloody mess.

Tears for Konoha, well he was already dry by the time for their turn came up. Unseen to them, a bolt echoed in the darkness outside, the shadowy clouds that rained water onto the earth now ejecting bolts of electricity. But the massive echo of a thunder couldn't have been missed by a deaf man if he tried.

They both fell asleep in each other's arms, exhausted by all the emotional revelations.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Next morning Natsuko woke up feeling better than she could remember ever feeling. She had this strange sensation of content and her pillow felt really warm. That along with the sound of birds chirping on the outside of the room made her want to go back to sleep listening to their lullaby go on, but then she suddenly stiffened. It was slight and a civilian, along with most of shinobi would have missed it, but the source of it didn't.

She stiffened because she felt a hand run through her hair but then relaxed when she realized whose hand it was and snuggled deeper into his chest like the little sister she was supposed to be.

"'morning Onii-chan." She mumbled sleepily as he continued caressing her head.

"'morning Natsuko-chan." She blushed slightly as she felt his chest rumble and the vibrations tickle her. It was very strange to her to be held like this but she enjoyed it. His voice also sounded little deeper than normal.

"Ne Naruto nii-chan you said that you saw my body, how is that possible?"

Naruto sighed from where he lay and sat up, in turn forcing Natsuko to do the same. She was about to grumble a bit about not wanting to get up yet when she saw him take his T-shirt of.

She turned beet red at the sight of his toned abs and well developed chest, having just entered puberty. Luckily for her Naruto didn't notice this, because she was sure that he would have teased the death out of her, as he was concentrating on a seal located over his heart.

He placed the tip of his right index finger on it and channeled some chakra into it. Well that was what happened in layman's terms. Simply channeling chakra into seals usually resulted in nothing or something going horribly wrong, a reason why people used blood as a catalyst when sealing objects.

There was a big puff of smoke as whatever was store in the seal was released. Natsuko coughed a little, unprepared for the sheer quantity of it. Using a small application of Futon (_Wind natured_) ninjutsu Naruto cleared the white fluffyness out of the room.

When the smoke cleared Natsuko saw a large crystal… tomb? It was about seven foot long, three foot wide and four foot high. It was completely transparent with a slight blue twinge to it and numerous seals carved into the sides off it, seals she was sure she would never understand.

Inside was the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. She had crimson red hair that reached down to her lower back and contrasted with her pale creamy skin. Her eyes were closed, her face in a serene expression giving her a peaceful aura even in death. She was dressed in a white silk kimono that stopped just above her bare feet; it was decorated with a red Uzumaki swirl on the left breast.

It was tied at the waist by an equally red ceremonial obi decorated with little white Uzumaki swirls. The outfit was a perfect combination, revealing her natural beauty and preserving her modesty. She wore no makeup, but that only made her more beautiful.

Natsuko blinked as she saw the diminutive form held on the crock of her mother's left arm. It was a baby, dressed exactly the same as her mother. She didn't have to ask who the baby was. If the three whisker marks on its cheeks didn't make it obvious the inscription just above the woman's head did.

"Uzumaki Kushina and Uzumaki Natsuko: beloved mother and sister." She whispered reverently. She looked in confusion at the little… her? "I don't understand."

Naruto placed a hand on one of the seals and channeled some chakra into it. The top seemed to simply melt away as he explained.

"The casket is actually made of ice. I used Hyouton manipulation to create it. The seals on the side draw natural chakra from the enviroment in order to sustain it and keep it from melting. Then there are blood seals so only a family member, in this case you or me, can open it. I put preservation seals on the bodies so they're in the exact same condition they were thirteen years ago, or more precisely 7 years ago when I unsealed them from my scroll. This was my way of keeping you both close to my heart, literally and figuratively." as he spoke with a sad and solemn tone, Natsuko noticed that not even once did he glance at hi- 'their' mother. Putting that though in the back of her mind she continued to listen to her Onii-chan.

It felt so nice to be able to call someone Onii-chan. The only other person she might have called that was Iruka. At the memory of her Academy Instructor she became saddened. Iruka-sensei along with the Ichiraku's were always the ones to treat her kindly- And she never got to say goodbye to the man.

She watched in morbid fascination as her brother reached in and pulled the 'baby Natsuko' out her mother's arms and started running his hand through her hair. Sensing her confusion he explained what he was doing.

"Since you're obviously not dead my best guess is that either Sarutobi-teme or Jiraya used a 'dead clone seal' to make me believe this was your body.'' seeing her only get even more confused at his words he decided to explain it more in depth as he put the baby down on the ground.

''Basically you take a dead body, the fresher the better, and place the seal on it using blood. Then you channel chakra into the seal to activate it and the corpse turns into a perfect copy whoever's blood you used. The seal isn't used much because of it's complexity, but in this case it worked perfectly.''

''How come?'' Natsuko asked as she approached the dead baby, feeling sick to her stomach at the thought.

''I was already upset about kaa-chan's death so I wasn't thinking clearly enough to check for anything and by the time I had calmed down I had already accepted the idea that you were dead. Now let's see who this really is." Pushing enough chakra into the seal to break it and set of another 200 explosive tags Naruto stepped back to observe the transformation. The body slowly morphed into that of a young boy, maybe three or four years old.

"Damn that's creepy! I just hope the kid was dead to begin with and that they didn't kill him especially for this."

Natsuko paled at his words. After an awkward silence Naruto got down to his kneest and gently picked the dead child up.

"I'm going to bury this little guy and get something to eat. I'll be back in an hour so you can have some time with kaa-chan." He bent down a placed a small kiss on Natsuko's forehead. He hesitated before closing his eyes and doing the same to Kushina before leaving in a hurry.

Naruto came back an hour later to find a smiling Natsuko looking up at him. She had tear tracks down her cheeks but she also looked as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. He set two trays of food down between them. It was a simple meal of rice, steak, a meaty broth with vegetables in it, and some fruit.

He sat down opposite her leaving Kushina's casket out. He felt she should be there for what he had planned to ask his baby sister.

"So Natsuko-chan tell me what your life had been like. And don't leave anything out, I know the life of a demon vessel isn't easy but I want to know everything. Considering I found you being attacked by NE ANBU I can imagine it hasn't been too good."

And so she started telling him about her life with a small smile, which contrasted with the story. If Naruto didn't listen to her chakra through his jutsu than he would have thought something was wrong. His little sister was just so happy that he was with her now that all of her past was proving to be nothing but a bad memory.

She told him about the constant glares and the whispers of 'that kid' and 'it'. How she was always kept away from other kids and how she even had to live on the street for a month with nothing but the clothes on her back. How she befriended the Ichiraku's and how she found a a bigger sister in her life. How some stores overpriced her before the 'men in funny blacks' appeared beside her.

How she became friends with Sakura, only to be dumped next day because her mother told her not to play with the 'demon brat'. How she would be ignored during classes at the academy whenever she asked a question. How she failed the genin exam three times.

How she got a team that was completely dysfunctional and a sensei that didn't teach them anything, a thing Naruto found hard to believe as he personally knew Hatake Kakashi and he hoped that the man didn't hold hatred for his little sister. The things he had learned from the man along with the Raikiri were the basis for most of the things he knew about advanced raiton chakra manipulation.

He was sure that he would feel a tad bit bad if he had to kill the man at a later date.

''Wait he taught you how to climb _trees, TREES_ three months into your service?'' Naruto asked in the most incredulous voice he had ever used, wondering if the silver haired jonin needed some mental help, since that is usually the first thing mastered by genin after leaving the Academy as it's one of the most practiced way of increasing your chakra control and reserves as a kid. It was basic, not much control could yield out of it but it worked for genin.

Heck he had mastered that at the age of 5 due to his Kaa-chan and her torture she called training. Naruto just knew some sort of a demon possessed her when she taught him in practical matters.

Finally she told him about the Sasuke retrieval mission and her banishment.

By the time she finished the sun was already setting and they were in a similar position to the one they woke up in. Naruto was stroking her hair as she snuggled up to him with her head resting on his chest.

"Don't worry Natsuko-chan!'' his words caused the blonde to look up at him with wide and shining baby blues, filled with happiness, only to see her Onii-chan giving her a big grin that revealed his larger and sharper than normal canines.

''From now on we're together and things are going to be different.''

She smiled serenely as she began to daydream of her future, not knowing that the next three years would spell pain and torture for her simply because her previous teachers all did half-hearted jobs at best in her training.

* * *

I will not be doing review shoutouts after this one, so if you want an answer you will have to login or wait for the story to roll out.

**To the 'smart' guy**: What the hell gave you the idea Naruto is Minato's son? I found the idea of having Roshi as a support and grandfather figure entertaining because of the way he is. I will be doing my best to replicate him like he is in real manga. The grouchy old man who is wise and loves silence. And all of that shit about Iwa hating Minato, this is one of the most blow-up things on fanfiction besides Naruto being constantly hunted down and dealt mortal damage, but never actually killed and still a grinning idiot. Not everyone hates Minato for his war effort in Iwa. The man did kill a lot of Iwa in a 'single' battle and was a dangerous foe to face, but it was **war**. I see the population of Elemental Nations as a little smarter than constantly bearing grudges for something done out of necessity, at least not to a fanatical level like so many authors picture it. Sure normally Iwa and Konoha would be strained, but Iwa did sent genin to the Chunin exam. The anime and manga have shown Iwa nin to be just normal people, not the scumbags and maniacs so many people make them out to be. While there are individuals that never give, I hardly believe one entire military force will be up and at arms just because Naruto is Minato's son in canon. Revenge is one thing, but everything has a limit. Then the entirety of the leaf should despise Hanzo or Pain. Or maybe Kumo and Tobirama. He destroyed the Kinkaku force. I don't see no one cursing out their names like the devil itself. Or maybe how killing intent can kill people. The thing Orochimaru did was a special technique. If Killing Intent itself was what gave the result, than the Jinchuriki, Kages and Madara would not need to even fight. Just make people's head explode from Killing Intent.


	4. Uzumaki Kick Ass Boot Camp 101- Taijutsu

**ARC I:** Baby Steps

Lost Family / Generic Training

**_Ch 4: _**_Uzumaki Kicking Ass Boot Camp 101- Taijutsu_

* * *

It was in the following next morning, right after another, far larger raging storm had passed cleanly over their heads and the roof of their shared room that we can find the two Uzumaki siblings standing in the middle of a patch of grass, just on the edge of small clearing located about half a mile from the village proper.

They were just far enough away from the settlement so that any and all damage that they caused to the area does not disrupt the villagers living there. Not to say that they would go demolishing the area that they were in on purpose, but Naruto was sure that they would be causing some destruction eventually if his sister was as much of a ninjutsu lover as he himself was.

The ground that they were standing on, the fresh green grass and the rich soil beneath their feet was quite dry as opposed to the earth in the village that they have spent the last two days at, just as the surrounding earth and the trees in a wide 200 feet radios were dried from the moisture and water that had befallen them over the course of two days.

This was the courtesy of some minor Sution ninjutsu manipulation by yours truly, Uzumaki Naruto.

The rising sun was colored in Natsuko's all time favorite colour- orange, that burning ball of infernal fire which provided the Earth with it's light was just peeking over the distant horizon as the people got to work across the continent, some of them getting up in order to fish in the seas, some of them to sell their goods in stores and some of them to plunder alongside with other bandits.

Natsuko was currently dressed in her normal and usual clothes, consisting of the ever famous orange eyesore that someone dared to call shinobi pants, along with a simple mesh shirt over her torso that covered her chest. She was standing across from her older and red haired brother in one of the combat stances that she knew back from her days in the Academy.

It was a simple and straight forward stance where she had her left leg in front of her body, her toes pointing towards the enemy, in this case her brother and her right leg was left slightly behind her. It was pointing to the side ever so slightly and didn't provide a good enough balance for the young kunoichi, but the girl was as stubborn as her mother was, not that she knew this, and somehow she had managed to make it work for her.

Of course this could be fixed easily if someone actually taught her how to fight.

The golden- yellow- blonde haired Jinchuriki had her left arm raised in front of her making a tight fist that could cause more damage to her than to the enemy while her right arm was lowered closer to her body, guarding her soft stomach while being close enough to be pulled up in an instant and used in hand to hand combat.

It was one of the stances that she usually used and worked with in her short 5 months career as a Konoha genin, as nobody took the time to try and fix the problem she had, nor did they try to teach her any real taijutsu styles. This was a great lapse on the Academy and the Jonin sensei's parts as Taijutsu was the most basic and fundamental of all shinobi arts.

Someone who couldn't fight in hand to hand was almost useless for combat, as anyone could get close to them and defeat them using a quick and powerful combination of punches, kicks or slashes to the body, or even use grapples on them. At best such shinobi who couldn't use close quarters combat skills could be used as cannon fodder unless they were powerful enough that they didn't need to worry about fighting in hand to hand, like what she had seen Gaara of the Desert do in the preliminaries of the Chunin Exam.

Natsuko in all of this wasn't really displeased, that worked with her just fine. She was more of a short ranged brawler that a real form fighter anyway, and the young Uzumaki preferred to use ninjutsus [_of which she knew barely three_] in combat, at least that is how she made it work for her.

Swarming the opponent with Shadow Clones before delivering the finisher on them in the form of a shiny blue orb of destruction was her normal and go to tactic in battle.

However, being placed under the pair of her Onii-chan's scrutinizing cobalt blue eyes, she felt like she was missing something here. Something important and she didn't like that, not knowing what was wrong especially now, since she finally had someone that she could go and make proud of her and someone who would teach her properly, not just someone who would give her a task to do, a task which should be explained thoroughly instead of being flimsed over and one demonstration to go with it.

Naruto was amazed when she told him how she learned to do the Rasengan (_Spiraling Sphere_). After listening to the fiasco of a training he had told her to demonstrate her jutsu, the result being visible on a nearby tree that was missing a large chunk of wood in the lower middle. After a short applause coming from Naruto, a gesture that made her beam up at him in happiness he had taken her aside and explained how each and every step could be solved properly.

His first explanation flew over her head as it was to complicated, but Naruto nii-chan insured her that she will understand it after he was done with her training. From there he had then explained it in her language, a much more dumbed down version before performing a perfect Rasengan on the tip of his left index finger.

She gawked at him for that. She took note of how it barely took him a mere moment to create the jutsu and she was amazed at how it seemed to levitate over his finger. Not even Jiraya could have hoped to create a perfect Rasengan like that, she remembered how it took the man about 3 long seconds to form the jutsu whenever he used it.

It took her 5 seconds while her brother did it in less than one.

Right now, her elder brother Uzumaki Naruto was standing just in front of her in a stone strong pose with his arms crossed over his muscular chest. THAT thought made her face gain the slightest of red hues every time she remembered just how handsome he looked without his shirt on.

WHAT...Natsuko was a developing young girl that had just entered puberty and who up untill recently only had the choice of ogling; a guy that wore more clothes on himself during summer than she did during winter, a boy that smelled like a wet dog 6 out of 7 days in the week, a pale skinned emoish not so nicely named Uchiha-teme that every other girl seemed to fawn over and a guy who's eyebrows are so thick that Natsuko was sure he could be hiding a scroll in them.

Yeah, not much of an assortment to pick from. But her brother was eye candy.

The 20 year old male was wearing stylized brown cargo pants with a number of pockets to put stuff into and a dark green, long sleeved shirt, over which he had his red and black jacket unzipped like yesterday. He didn't have the sword sheath with him anymore, since he no longer had a sword to go with it. When she asked if that was a problem, since he had messed it up when trying to save her and she felt that she was a reason that he was weaponless, he had waved her concerns off with a shake of his head.

''I don't really use swords, not my thing. I just know how to wield them and how to fight with them.''

He was looking at her stance over and over, taking every minute detail that he could see and the glaring problems that she showed him with the beginning form, resisting the urge to groan every time his count of holes and problems reached the count of 10.

Steeling herself and her nerves, Natsuko hesitated before asking. She had no wish to incur his anger or disappointment and she had no idea how she should act around him. She had always been more or less alone and family relations were a foreign concept to her ''We-well Onii-chan, what's the problem?''

The man didn't answer her question immediately, instead he moved to walk around her once and take note of even more problems when he had a different point of view. To the male Uzumaki, it was honestly mind boggling how many problems there were in his sister's beginning, and what should have been a simple, stance.

What should be one mistake at most actually had 4 or 5 additional problems that it tied into all over her stance. It was a miracle she was still alive, or maybe others had just underestimated her too much and paid the price for it, Naruto didn't care. All he knew was that had a lot of work to do with her if he wanted to teach her properly.

Coming to a stop right in front of her Naruto raised his right hand and rubbed the back of his neck with a sigh, once again taking a look at her face, just to make sure she was real and in front of him.

All of this still seemed like a too good of a dream to him and the lonely Uzumaki needed every insurance that it was real as he could get. Finally the whisker cheeked man spoke to her in a voice that sounded resigned, as he resisted the urge to sigh at the flimsy and filled with holes stance that she had presented him with.

''Okay Natsuko-chan, who was it that taught you that stance and tell me where he lives so I can go and extract my pound of flesh out of him or her''

Natsuko sweatdropped at her brothers words. In the short time that they were together for the last two days, she has found out that the man sometimes went to unnecessary extremes to get his point through, like when that old woman didn't want to sell him vegetables.

The young girl just hoped he was only joking as she tried to remember the lessons on taijutsu back in the Academy. Those lessons usually flew over her head and most of the things taught then proved rather useless to her later on so she ignored them after nobody wanted to explain it to her.

With almost all of her classmates being clan heirs or already having someone else teaching them taijutsu styles like maybe parents, she was left in the dust alongside the Haruno harlot whose parents were retired shinobi.

Nervously, biting her lower lip she answered the question. ''Hehe...um I think that it was Mizuki-sensei that taught the taijutsu classes in the Acade...my..'' she trailed off as her eyes widened once she connected the dots.

That bastard. He had started to sabotage her already back then, why didn't any of the sensei's do something about it back then. Did they really want her to die that much. But if he did mess up with her lessons then why didn't any of her other senseis do anything to fix it after she left the Academy.

She believed that at least Jiraya wanted to teach her something. Kakashi never once taught them anything other than climbing trees, while Sasuke got his trademark jutsu and a pair of Katon techniques.

By now saddened, thinking that the people who were supposed to teach her how to be a real shinobi didn't seem to care at all about her she was about to move out of her stance, but her brother held up his hand in order to tell her to stop.

''Wait Natsuko-chan'' He lowered his hand and moved in closer to her. ''Stay as you are, I'll be making some changes to your stance now.'' He grumbled something under his breath that she didn't catch, only recognising the words 'idiots' and 'blind'. Coming to a stop in front of her, he stood there like some sort of imposing castle. he then put his hands on her shoulder to keep her steady as he brought his left leg forward under her.

With it he prodded at her right leg, moving the foot more to the side and giving her a larger base on which to balance, while pointing the toes more to the side as well in order to give her more stability in defense. ''Keep your foot like this.'' he said as he crouched down and looked around her left side. He then patted her thighs a little, forcing them up with each tap as she relaxed in his hands.

This in turn raised the level at which she was crouching higher than what she was used to. With his arms still holding her thigh he put a hand in the middle of her chest and slowly pushed. He applied pressure to her torso and so did her body bent back from her forwards haunch, straightening her whole posture up.

Since whatever her brother was doing made her body feel more and more comfortable in the stance, Natsuko stayed silent through all of it. She relaxed her muscles, thus allowing the red haired man to make the changes he wanted to her stance.

''With your feet position like this you can dodge faster and react a little quicker'' Naruto told her as he sat back into his crouch looking at her arms and their position in relative to the rest of her body. As he did so Natsuko looked at him curiously in question.

She wondered how did that work.

''How come?''

Naruto poked her sides with his finger several times in order to get her in the right position. A straight stand, but not too much. He didn't need her to become as rigid as a pole. He though about how to explain it as he made sure that everything was all right with her hips when she stood, as the wrong positioning of them could lead to pain. Pain in the middle of a battle when you don't expect it could be the death of any shinobi.

When he was finally comfortable with the changes he had made, Naruto focussed his sight back onto her arms and the clumsy way it looked. Holding back a sweatdrop at the sight since she looked quite comically like this he explained. ''With the way you stand right now, you will apply less pressure into your feet. More pressure into something meant that there was more wight in them and this meant that it will take you more time and that it would require more of your power to move. You won't waste as much strength into moving your body like this like you did before.''

She nodded in understanding, happy with the explanation he had provided her with. It was usually much better when someone explained to you why was something supposed to be done like thins and explain how are you supposed to do it. In less than one hour her older brother had been more help than all of her sensei's combined. She had learned everything on her own up untill now, by trial and error, which is sometimes good but really time taxing as well as problematic. She learned how to do the Kage Bunshin on her own, she had no help when she was learning the Rasengan and being thrown of a cliff does not count at helping.

She should have had Gamabunta squash the perverted old hermit after that stunt he had pulled.

Naruto leaned back a little and gave his sister enough room for her to do what he wanted. ''Natsuko'' He said gaining her attention. ''Try hopping in place. Tell me how does it feel'' confused at the request but trusting her brother enough to believe he knew what he was doing, she listened.

The difference was ridiculous. Natsuko felt that if she hoped higher that she would end up flying.

''So?''

''It feel's much better Onii-chan'' Natsuko said as she stopped hopping on her feet and looked up to see her brother leaning in closer.

''Who in the pure world thought that putting up your hands like this was a smart idea'' she blushed as she heard him say this, knowing that she herself made some changes to her stance when she tried to improvise on her own. It was then that she had realised that his face was much closer than it was a moment ago. Fighting back the redness in her face, not knowing what was wrong with her she let her brother grab her hands and twist them around, making sure to be as gentle as possible.

Naruto himself was right now, looking at her wrist with a great care for detail and seemed to be applying pressure to them with his own fingers. Natsuko felt something tickling inside her chakra could and only then spotted that his hands had a soft blue hue arround the fingers. She frowned at that, not knowing what was he doing but stayed silent, allowing him to work as he moved her hands around a little, pushing her elbow higher here and placing it more to the side there. Opening and closing her fists like this instead of that and so one.

''There, that should do it'' Naruto said as he finished moving her hands into a proper combat stance stance, one that he used and that won't get her killed one of these days because some idiot had a petty grudge. The idea of seeing the destroyed remains of Konohagakure no Sato beneath his sandals seemed far more appealing the more her spent time with his sister.

Getting up back on his own two feet, Naruto then backed away from Natsuko slightly as he looked down at her from his impressive height, making her squirm under his gaze as he looked over and through the stance once more, taking in what he could still improve and seeing if he missed anything important in it.

It was funny just how much a few slight changes can make a drastic difference in life, be it when calculating in mathematics, speaking a language, writing in letters or seals, manipulating chakra in one's body or moving muscles to get the body into position to do an action or to do a reaction according to the set of events around you.

Nodding to himself when he was done, Naruto moved back a couple of dozen feet as he took his own stance, identical to her own.

Now the stance that both of them were using wasn't a real taijutsu form, not by regular means at least.

Naruto had learned a number of taijutsu styles in his 3 years of traveling around the Elemental Nations as a hired mercenary for the Old Grumpy Fart and his village, but at his core he never likes using a set condition of muscle movements and positions. So that meant that the male Uzumaki was still a free former when it came to taijutsu and that he just took in what he could use and made the best out of it when adding it to his moveset.

The Sharingan wasn't the only way to copy things or predict an opponents movement, but the idea that you needed those eyes to predict your opponent was ludicrous. Anyone with enough experience could guess what you were going to do, the Sharingan just speed up the process.

The Uchiha Clan's Kekkai Genkai was a tool that helped ninja in predicting patterns of movement along with chakra flow and ninjutsu patterns when using handseals in their opponents, but it in itself didn't make much sense for an untrained Uchiha. If one knew enough about hand to hand combat they could tell what the opponent was sure to do instead of falling for feints, just as the Sharingan could. Chakra flow was a little harder to guess, but if you knew enough about elemental manipulation then you could 'feel' what should it be if you concentrate hard enough.

Being unpredictable was much better in his opinion than following a set code of moves. Naruto fought like that and had beaten his fair share of opponents.

However, in order for someone to improvise on the fly when fighting in hand to hand combat, they first needed to learn the basics of taijutsu. How to punch and when to kick in a real taijutsu style, which was to move was the proper way to move, dodge and evade and when to act on an oppening.

Looking at Natsuko he could tell that she had no idea what she was doing when she fought, only swinging her hands wildly and hoping that she could land a hit. With the power of the Kyuubi this might have been enough when facing others with backup, but there will be a day when raw power and luck won't be enough.

Naruto was dead set on making sure that when the day came, she will know how to fight.

* * *

**Play**: Row Row Fight the Power refrain

* * *

''Natsuko'' Naruto called out as he saw her staring at him in confusion, spacing out in front of him. It was a thing that both of them seemed to do a lot and might become a problem one of these days, since getting lost in your thoughts in the middle of a battle meant death.

Even with that, Naruto couldn't help but to smile. Their mother always spaced out when she did something or when she talked. It was just one more thing that classified them as hers. And Natsuko had that cute verbal tic to her.

Kushina also always had a verbal tic.

''I need to see how you fight properly'' Naruto told her as her eyes widened. She realised what this meant as she gripped her hands together and her face became determined, if a little nervous. Closing his eyes Naruto could tell what it meant and had to do his hardest to keep a smile of his face at the concern that she felt for him

She was worried that she would hurt him. How cute of her to be worried about him. Wasn't that supposed to be his job in this relationship.

''Okay, if you are sure Onii-chan?!'' Natsuko stated unsurely as she rushed forward at him with impressive speed for her height. Her cute little round face was set in a determined expression to show her older brother just how good she can be.

''Remember'' Naruto yelled as he vanished from sight. Natsuko halted in her advance and looked around. She froze however when she felt a hand touch her shoulder. ''Come at me with the intent to kill''

Applying chakra to his hand Naruto pulled her up and swung her towards one of the tree's, making sure that if she hit them that she wouldn't be injured-... much.

Just because he told her to try her best to hurt him didn't mean he would like to do the same to her.

Natsuko flipped in midair and landed safely on the ground just 5 feet before she made friends with the tree, the momentum of her flight being stopped by both her arms and legs as they dragged across the ground. Coming to a halt, she looked up at him and blew some of her hair out of the way with her mouth.

''Shinobi Tactial Skill Number One: Taijutsu, Hand to hand combat''


	5. What do you believe in?

**ARC I:** Baby Steps

Lost Family / Generic Training

**_Ch 5: _**_What do you believe in?_

* * *

That day Natsuko had spent the next and following 5 hours of sunlight going through her first day in a long line of tor-... er I meant training. Naruto had her fight him one on one twice, both of those times ending with her unceremoniously eating dirt in copious amounts before he switched it up to some other form of training. The blonde haired Jinchuriki had spent quite some time practicing various sorts of drills that her brother had given her to do and doing a multitude of basic exercises on top of that.

Naruto did some light stretching while he watched her run across the field from one end to the next, where she would have to touch the ground with her hand before sprinting as fast as she could to the other side to do the same with her other hand, and then repeating the process over and over.

If she didn't have the Kyuubi sealed within her gut, then she would have dropped from the sheer fatigue long ago. As it was right now, it was mostly her stubborn determination that was pushing her through this hell.

During the 4th hour Naruto had her go through the basic Academy Katas while he observed her form from up close. This is what she had managed to mess up. Horribly at that. The older Uzumaki could see the problem after her first few moves. The girl's stance was too wide to provide a solid base and to sloopy to actually work. Is this really what Academy Teachers did these days, trying to mess up a student's chance of survival or was she just that bad when it came to hand to hand combat.

No matter, Naruto planned to change that either way. The red head told her to bring her legs closer together when she came to a halt. Three steps later they returned to their previous distance which was the source of her flails and stumbles.

Naruto then told her to bring her left foot in while she put her right food closer to the side. Slowly the blonde's feet inched farther out again after the first few minutes. The pseudo-jinchuriki was getting frustrated at the lack of progress, but he didn't blame his sister for it, he really couldn't.

It wasn't easy to overwrite years and years of faulty move sets in one day. This process would take a lot of time and a well of patience, something the whiskered girl sorely lacked. Not saying that Naruto was much better at waiting, but he was older and much more leveled that his younger sister was. He frowned when he saw her go through the next set of katas. Apparently this one gave her more trouble than the others did, and no one deemed to see it fit to correct her, not Kakashi nor the 'Legendary' Sannin. To the older Uzumaki it looked as if she was swinging her arms around like wet ramen noodles and he had to correct her several times before she got on the right track, only to reach another brick wall. This one she plowed through like a rhino, her temped getting the best of her and messing up entirely.

Seing the Uzumaki blood in her rising to the surface Naruto decided to let her cool off in the bast way that he knew she could.

And this was the set of events and troubles that brings us this comical sight.

''Heeeey!'' The golden locks Jinchuriki whined as blood rushed into her head, producing a cherry faced response ''Onii-chan, let me down right now. dattebano!'' Natsuko barked out as she started to swing her hands around and flail in non-general directions. The reason? She was being held up by her brother upside down, her hair just a touch away from the earth as her free leg wobbled left and right, trying to wrench her right leg from Naruto's strong but careful grip.

''Nope'' was the response she received, followed by a set of chuckles. This only spurred her attempts to set herself free even more, like a confined but wild animal, she raged and trashed in his hold. With such frantic locomotion she finally managed to angle herself forward and almost reached for her target, only for some golden chains to swivel around her leg into an even stronger grip and pull her away.

She came face to upside down face with her own brother, wo was looking at her, his face showing just how much he was bemused at her situation.

Another set of chuckles from the man and she glared at him. The action served no other purpose than making him laugh even harder at her expense. Natsuko puffed out her cheeks in annoyance ''It's not funny, Naruto nii-chan!''

''Oh yes, yes it is'' Naruto assured her with a sage like nod as he gazed at her, before he swung the chains arround a little more when she continued to glare at him.

''Okay, okay, I'm sorry. But you are just so cute looking all angry like that'' Naruto said in a pacification attempt, not about to start a prank war with her. If she was anything like her mother, he will never win.

Natsuko's face reddened at his words as he set her down gently on her back, allowing her to gaze up at the sky. She didn't know how to react to such words nor to his light teasing, not having any experience in that appartement. The most teasing she got in the Academy because of her cat like appearance was quickly snuffed out when she trashed the girls straight into the medical room, and Kiba's pick up lines were incredibly lame.

''Tired yet?'' Naruto asked as he crouched down besides her, placing his face within her field of vision. Natsuko's response was to groan tiredly at him, before giving her brother a paltry nod of conceit. She wanted to say no, to show him that she could go on, but she knew that wasn't a smart idea. She was quite literally dry, her chakra reserves now only a shadow of her full capacity 5 hours earlier.

''Good then, that means this will be our routine for the next week.'' his dooming words only made her feel even more ill, knowing that she will be going to sleep quite sore every day from now. But it was okay, if it meant that she was going to receive some real training from her brother. The girl then slowly closed her eyes, the lids falling over her light baby blues. She felt the wind race across her skin and the Uzumaki kunoichi let her brain get cleared, with the chirping of the birds providing ample background music.

Not a minute later, she was out cold.

Naruto gazed at her peaceful face and felt a smile break across his own.

''You did good Imuoto, you did good'' he whispered as he brough his right thumb to his mouth. Taking a solid bite with his sharpened canine across the more durable and harder skin, he flicked the blood behind him.

A moment later, one blood clone stood at attention behind him, his eyes also set on his sister's form. The blood clone already knew what his job was supposed to be. To make sure Natsuko was safe while the boss took care of the intruders.

An azure blue barrier sprung around the girl and the clone soon after in the appearance of a dome, the original already having vanished in a stream of a pale blue light, using the sub-elemental version of shunshin that allowed him to weave around obstacles in his path instead of colliding with them.

Time to see what a squad of Konohagakure no Sato shinobi was doing here. But Naruto could take an educated guess, taking into the account that the shinobi he was sensing didn't have a smidgen of emotions in them. Not even ANBU could have such signatures, they can turn them off but he will always sense them if they got close enough with his Mind's Eye of the Kagura.

That could mean only one thing.

Elder Shimura's Root ANBU managed to track them down even with the rain. It was time to take out the trash.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Back to the village located half a mile away from our two 'heroes', the people within it were going on with their day to day lives like it was any other day, without much thought besides the norm. Some of them, most notably the big and muscular lumberjacks of the village grumbled under their breaths as they worked about the soaking wet mush that they were working in.

Heeey, when you are supposed to have a strong base to swing an axe to topple down trees or to transport heavy objects over the distances up to nearly a mile, like the big pieces of lumber that they prepared and deposited into the lumberjacking yard or the following timber that came out and which they then transported onto horse carts parked near the stables, then having squishy footing would make you annoyed as well.

The village was a peaceful community not nearly seen on many maps without much to steal from, so bandits left them alone most of the time. The only real prize that the scum of humanity could plunder from the village would be the beautiful women of the village, but when you have a force of 90+ big, armed and heavily muscled males that could use their tools better than most bandits could wield their weapons defending a place, then most trash with brains decided to stay clear of them.

Shinobi from the nearby Hidden Leaf Village rarely passed through it, and when they usually did it was just a simple patrol mission, who's members would ask the people for any sightings of bandits or other vagabonds for them to clear out in the area.

It was one of the reason why it was strange for the villagers to see a whole squad of Root ANBU approaching the Inn where they had narrowed down their search, taking the matron's nerves apart while doing so in their search for the Kyuubi Jinchuriki. They couldn't pin point the weapon, because when Naruto and his entered the village, the male Uzumaki had discretly planted several chakra smoke screening seals- which served as a disruption of chakra trail left behind by his sister and any other living being.

Any chakra trail within range would get scrambled while creating background static on a sensor's senses. The seals were hard to create and didn't last forever, but for a short time they would work as he had wanted. The only problem was that this disruption served both ways, so Naruto himself didn't detect the drones untill they approached one of his Kage Bunshins he had left behind to keep watch.

It didn't take the red head too long to dispatch the Root Drones. While they individually had impressive skills that would put them above any chunin, the male Uzumaki was far from a chunin, especially when some of his more lethal jutsu needed only one cut to his opponents to take them down. Blood cloud jutsu was a very dangerous thing. It was a jutsu that works by taking a blood sample and using chakra to copy the blood's 'signature'. Everybody's blood is different, by using that difference the user, in this case Uzumaki Naruto can target his enemies for assassination. It can attack a target in two ways: identification and discrimination. Identification works by locking on to the target and striking at it, avoiding everything else. Discrimination works by locking on to the target but striking at everything else, avoiding it totally.

_'Root!_' Naruto mentally snarled as he drove his Raikiri covered palm through the last drone's left lung, piercing flesh and bone in the process, cutting through it like a knife through butter. Using his original branch of ninjutsu he cleaned his hand from any left over blood before unceremoniously dropping the corpse into a ditch he dug with some Doton before he vanished in a shunshin. He would have take all of their things from the room they had rented in the Inn before leaving this place.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

One week later after the forlone events at the village that no one had bothered to remember the name of, we can find two distinct looking people traveling together down the middle of a forest path. Moving through one the Land of Fire's rich and lively forests, going at a civilians pace as they did so.

Both of them shared a single parent, but weren't the same age nor did they share the same height or father. The older one of them had short and unruly red hair, one of the clan traits that he had inherited from his kind and loving mother. The hair was spiky and had no set patter of protruding as the locks branched out in all directions on his head.

He wore dark blue navy pants, the same type that the Konohagakure no Sato shinobi used in their own uniforms and standard blue shinobi sandals. A mesh T- shirt adored his torso like a second skin and over it he still wore his usual red & black jacket unzipped. The older male had his eyes dead set on a purple cover coloured book that he was holding in his hands, right in front of him so that the man could read it.

At first sight there wasn't anything wrong with this situation. It was just a man in his early years that seemed to like reading in his free time, something that most kids these days didn't even dare nor did they want to think about.

This would usually be the first thing that someone would think of at the sight when they saw it, especially seing as the cover of the book didn't include the words Icha Icha on them in big bolded Kanji.

This however wasn't such a situation. The book that he was reading at the moment was one of the special books that Kaiya had accidentally left within his book seal. It has been exactly three weeks since he had noticed it stashed within the pocket dimension. When he did though, he had troubles stifling his laughter. Who would have thought that Kaiya, the bad and hot Iwa kunoichi would even read this stuff.

But, seing as she was undoubtedly one of the best developed and hottest kunoichi that he had met in his life, there might be something in here. It was a book on proper kunoichi diets. Not the kind that told them how to loose weight like all those that the civilian girls adored, but this one told them what and how should they eat which food in order to develop their bodies to be proper shinobi- more stamina in their endurance and more strength in their muscles while keeping the main aspect of their sexyness.

Of course this book also showed the best was to develop a kunoichi's...allure.

Naruto did his best to keep his mind clear of that, he did not need to read about such trivialities to begin with. He was not a girl and his sister definetly had no need to become some sort of a seductress under his wing.

It was in that exact moment however, that something unexpected struck him like a bolt of lightning out of the clear blue sky. The red haired men realised something very, very important and faltered in his footsteps.

Naruto's facial expression slowly inched into one of pure, undaltured horror, like when you were having a particularly bad nightmare and suddenly woke up at the nastiest part. The male had to give it his all in order to keep his face straight while his scarless skin lost some of it's healty and tanned colour.

His little sister, the one that he had just gotten back barely a week ago, his precious little baby sister was going to be entering _those_ years soon.

She will learn new things about her body and will soon start to develop an interest in boys, if she already hasn't while back in the village. This would also mean that her body will soon begin to do ...girly stuff every month and that he will have to find a way for him to explain the Birds and Bees lesson to her.

Naruto highly doubted that someone took the time out of their day to explain it all to her.

He had to make sure though ''Natsuko'' his voice came out, wavering a bit as it did so. But the ever cheerful girl didn't notice it so there was that to look at.

''Um...Yeaa, Onii-chan? What is it?'' Natsuko looked up from the leaf that she was glaring at as she walked and settled her baby blue eyes on the whisker lines of her brothers face, her face brightening up as she did. Just for the added measure, she tilted her head to the side to get a better look, giving her a very cute 'Kawaii' expression that women could hardly resist.

Naruto scratched his shin with his left hand, idly noting that he will have to either start cutting his beards again or cast that ever useful jutsu to stop facial hair growth. Whoever invented it was truly a genius and a time saviour in his eyes.

''Did someone tell you about the..'' he glanced down at her, seriously feeling a little strange with the topic that he had to ask her ''...birds and bees?''

Natsuko only looked at him strangely with her round baby blues, as if she didn't understand what he meant by his words.

'_Don't tell me-'_

''I don't think I understand what you meant Naruto Nii-chan. What about birds and bees? What is that?'' in the confusion she tilted her head to the other side.

DRAT

Naruto palled visually at those words. It was as he had feared.

''Oh, hehe- he'' the red head nervously laughed as he looked away from his little sister.

''Nothing, nothing...go back to your exercise'' Naruto told her before burying his face deeper into Kayla's book, trying to hide the anime tears that poured down his whiskered cheeks. Natsuko listened to his orders, albeit with a small grumble as she went back to doing her _'focus training' _as her brother had called it. Bah who needed focus when you can throw chakra around in the buckloads.

''...'' OH FUCK NOOoo!

The male Uzumaki mentally shouted inside his head and the sound echoed loudly, deep inside the darkness of his mind.

What will he do now.

Now Naruto knew for sure that he will have to wrap this up quickly and be done with it. He had stumbled upon a rumor back in the border village of Tangero Gai about some small temple at the south of the Land of Fire being fortified by a strong fuinjutsu matrix. The vague description of said temple had reminded the man of the Uzumaki Mask Shrine near Konoha. With him being one of the last few Uzumaki's in the world he wanted to see if it was from his clan and if it was, what did it hold.

Why would the Uzumaki build a temple all the way down to the south of the country they were allied with had him bafled, but it was worth some investigating. He had already been sidetracked for a good long week with fixing the problems in his sister's taijutsu, so now he wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible, he would be getting a new job from the Old Grumbling Fart soon, he could just feel it

Natsuko still had some small problems with a few of the basic katas and her body still tried to automatically revert back into her old stance, the one that could get her killed more easily but she did give it her all and then some. The female Uzumaki was getting along with her new training quicker than he remember himself did, but maybe it was because of the age difference.

In any case, once Naruto was sure that the seal he had wanted to put on her in order to hide her scent and mask her chakra signature will hold for as long as they were required to stay in the Land of Fire, they had set out. This was done 6 days ago, and these six days were spent with him drilling her in chakra control.

Now they only had about a day's walk to reach the alleged location of the temple and he had trouble remaining calm. He had a bad feeling, like something bad would be happening soon, and he was worried for his sister's safety. What if he won't be able to protect her if they run into trouble. While e was sure he could defeat almost anyone that he fought sooner or later, there was only so much he could do to keep her safe in the middle of a battle.

But such thinking was bad for his integrity and so he focussed on fixing the mistakes Konoha did in her training as best as he could before they reached their destination. From there they will then high tail it back to Old Man Roshi's place, which was to the north just near the border of the Land of Earth.

If he had any more luck remaining, then Kayla will more than likely be staying there as well. She was getting more and more attached to him and was probably waiting for him to show up there and then so that she could go a few rounds with him.

He glanced at his sister once more. He could try and shove this problem off on her shoulders, have her do it as a favour for him. He just hoped that the Old Fart won't be there, he didn't know how would the Tsuchikage react to his sister's presence. It wasn't like he was afraid of the old grumbler, he could destroy the man if given a proper chance with his power, but problems could always occur and the man was a dangerous shinobi, having lived to such an old age as he did.

Besides that, he didn't want to kill the old sack of bones. The grumpy elder was one of his favorite rivals during poker nights. It would be such a shame to kill him. And Kayla would more then likely retaliate if he did try anything.

But, there was just no way, no way at all that Uzumaki Naruto was going to be explaining the Birds and Bees to his little sister, oh no-no-no, no way at all. Flipping over to the next page he glanced back to his sister, who was walking on his right side beside him.

Uzumaki Natsuko was alive.

He still feared this was nothing but a dream. Because if it was some sort of a sick and demented dream that would give him what he dreamed of, only to rip it out of his hands later, then he wasn't sure if he will able to stop himself from going through his original plan.

Natsuko was now sporting dark orange pants that he could have sworn he had put to pyre along with the jacket when she was asleep and a white tank top shirt. Over it she still wore that obnoxious and eye catching orange and blue jacket, but it was unzipped like his own was. A kunai pouch was tied around her right leg with some bandages to keep it in place while her other ninja tools remained placed within her hip pouch.

Besides that, she now sporting one more change to her attire. After thinking about it for several moments he had to admit that he liked the sight of it, especially with the desecration of the symbol with a horizontal slash. Because tied around her throat like an impromptu necklace or some strange choker of some sort, since she was currently working on chakra control and the first task was getting a leaf to stick properly onto her forehead was a slashed headband with the mark of the modified leaf on it, signaling her allegiance to the ninja world.

Or more properly her former allegiance.

Since most people didn't even see a ninja once in their lives nobody knew much about their way of life, no civilian would think of it much. Hardly anyone believed that the stories about ninjutsu were even true, why would they.

To the common folk all of that sounded like magic.

A frustrated groan from her told him she was failing at the exercise he had given her. While Naruto did believe that some things you had to understand and learn for yourself by yourself, without someone else being there and holding to your hand, he also knew another important fact.

Basics were just that. Basics. There was no use in pussyfooting around them like it was a holy grail and making the lives of young and aspiring ninjas hard by not helping them. He had told her exactly what she needed to do in order to get that leaf to stick to her forehead when they had started to move southwards.

After seing just how much chakra she wasted on her fist proper ninjutsu he had shown her, Naruto realised that she will have to train on the move like he did. There was nothing wrong with that really, they would just take a tad bit longer on getting to their destination. Chakra control was essential for her if she wanted to learn any of his more complex jutsus, so here she was.

Trying to stick a leaf to her forehead with her chakra. She needed to direct all of her chakra onto the leaf and use it as a focal point, but there was a hidden meaning to this particular exercise, one that Naruto hoped that his baby sister will come to grasp with time. Originally, the true purpose of the exercise is actually to hone the individual's concentration and to keep their mind from becoming distracted. In the world of ninjas, only those who have worked hard on their ability to concentrate can become excellent shinobi.

Some more cursing a few minutes later and Naruto smiled as he flipped over another page. He knew that the exercise would be highly frustrating for her to accomplish, especially with her larger than high chakra reserves, but the older Uzumaki also had faith in his baby sister. She was his mother's daughter afterall.

''Dammit Dattebano, what the hell am I doing wrong?''

Yep- Naruto sweatdroped- she was definitely his mother's daughter all right, and an Uzumaki at that.

''Stick you accursed leaf, or perish in hell!''

Even her temper was the same as Kaa-chan's.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sometimes later as they were moving down the path, they heard the sound of flapping. Looking up both of the Uzumakis saw a small dark blue bird, her size no larger than that of a small pigeon, as it flew closely over their heads, gaining their close attention and subsequently causing Natsuko to lose her focus. The leaf on her forehead was blown several feet into the air before it started to plummet down, Natsuko's residual and somewhat potent chakra making it weigh more than it normally did.

The blonde haired girl glared at the leaf in her hands with a heated might, wishing that her eyes could shoot flames at the abnoxiousity. She had snatched it out of the air before it fell down to the ground and she was forced to pick it up.

A, by now familiar hand touched her head and she tried to look towards it's owner, her bigger brother.

Kami, the thought that she had such a cool elder sibling almost made her squeal in delight like a fan-girl. But she knew that she had to keep her excitement down. This same mostly out of the fear of annoying him like she seemed to have done with her previous teachers. Why wouldn't they teach if she didn't annoy them? After all that had happened to her in her short Jinchuriki life and the events off the past month, she had lost a good deal of her previous spunk that radiated from her, the same spunk that made her run her mouth in the presence of powerful and well respected ninjas.

And she had NOOO intentions of risking HIM leaving her anytime soon.

''Calm yourself Natsuko-chan. Getting frustrated over a simple thing such as this won't get you far in life'' her brother advised sagely with a wisely nod of his head as he ruffled her hair a little in a show of affection. She wouldn't admit it out loud, nor to herself, but she secretly loved it when he did ruffle her hair. It felt like they were never gone out of their lives and that they will continue to behave like that for a good long while.

This was all howeverr, her secret. So his actions earning him a cute pout from Natsuko, who then tried her best to fix her hair with her hands, straightening it out and patting the quirks that her brother had created with his hands down. She didn't really care all that much about her looks, she was a kunoichi not a housewife, but she still wanted to look at least a little presentable.

Naruto only smiled at her pout.

Looking at the leaf in her hand once more, Natsuko was reminded of a certain conversation that she had participated in a few months ago. Craning her head to peer up at the male Uzumaki, she asked with curiosity lining her soft voice.

''Onii-chan?''

Naruto averted his eyes from the book he was reading in acknowledgment of her words. ''Yes Natsuko-chan? What's the matter?''

Natsuko looked at him with an intense look, searching for something in his cobalt blue eyes that only she could see.

''What do you think real strength is Onii-chan? Where does real power come from.''

She finally asked after her brother didn't break her gaze for a full minute, patiently waiting for her to ask him something as they walked. The young Nine Tailed Fox's prison had been wondering about that little tidbit for a while now. What did her brother consider real strength in life, considering he had lived a much different life than she did, and the more traumatic one out of the two.

Was it jutsu, chakra, money or whatever people though as important these days. Her question had by now caused Naruto to slow down a little in his walk as he mulled it over. Glancing at her the red haired male closed his book shut with his left hand before he placed it back into his jacket's pocket. The thing soon vanished within a special seal he had installed there with a small puff of smoke.

''Hmm...that's a very good question Natsuko-chan.'' Naruto informed her with a nod of his head as he rubbed his chin with his right hand, looking up through the tree canopy towards the sunny sky. Her curious words did strike a rather specific chord within him that he wished to forget, but it also made him smile mentally. She was already showing signs of improving, both mentally and physically.

''First you must realise that power and strength aren't the same thing.'' He started out his lecture as he closed his eyes and thought about his words carefully, all the while knowing that his sister had her ears wide open and was listening to him in full attention.

Kagura Shingan was such an usefull technique these days.

''Many people have different views of what is important and they see power in different forms. Some people see power as being rich. Some people thing that power means to be feared while others see it as being wise.'' Natsuko furrowed her eyebrows but otherwise remained silent, letting her brother to do the talking.

''There really are many views of what power is in this accursed world'' Naruto said, his last words making Natsuko worry, as he waved his right hand through the air, simultaneously releasing some of his chakra in a dense form through the tenketsu in his palm. The blue energy was actually visible to the human eye as it started to form a small bubble of solid blue chakra.

Pointing at the bubble that was floating besides them Naruto continued ''Some people see ninjutsu as power. The power to change the landscape, bring back the dead and give life, create illusions or weave barriers. Ninjutsu is an abstract art that can't be defined by simple words alone'' he poked the bubble and it popped like any baloon would have, before the red head started to absorb it back into his being.

[Ninjutsu is sometimes refered to as the whole art of chakra manipulation and even basic shinobi arts, not just elemental ninjutsu or pure chakra like Rasengan. Being able to hide from sight can be considered Ninpo (_Ninja Art_) or Ninjutsu (_Ninja Technique_) as well]

''But why is it important to he powerfull'' Natsuko egged on a little more, intrigued by his lecture up untill now. Sure she never really listened to such things before in her life, but she knew now that she will have to change for her to survive in this world. Noting like exile and / or banishment from your home to kick your ass into high gear.

Naruto glanced back at her before casting a focused genjutsu in front of him, taking advantage of the still residual chakra in the air. Illusions weren't something he was particularly good at but he could use them outside of battle most often, well besides _those _illusions, but he made his best effort not to use that power.

Besides the point of him not wanting to use a certain form of ninjutsu, fuinjutsu can create genjutsu as well, so he took those into consideration. And now, before their eyes the map of the whole Elemental Nations appeared. However the thing that surprised Natsuko was the fact that there were no borders or insignia displayed on it, nor were there any colours on display.

''Think about it this way. In this world..'' he stopped speaking as he concentrated on the image before them. Soon enough, small lines that indicated the borders of the various nations and lands continent wide appeared on the map. ''..ruled by the human race, power and strength control everything.''

The word in Kanji for shinobi appeared above the map, before the map was filled with the signs of all the Hidden Villages, past and present, destroyed and standing at once. Natsuko was surprised by the sheer amount of hidden villages and even ninja villages, the smaller, most often single clan sized militarised towns present on the map.

Then the capital cities of the various nations countries appeared on the map, the various seats of power in the lands followed by the centers of commerce and trading ports. Mines and places of natural beauty soon blitzed up there, followed by more and more different signs and soon enough, the map was filled with dots, crosses and other various shapes in all colours and sizes.

''..and without it you can't enforce your beliefs. In this world the most recognized form of power are the Hidden ninja villages-'' most of the signs disappeared from the 'screen', only to be replaced by the influence of each village in attributing colours. After that some villages were snuffed out as their time came and had gone past in the history.

''One very powerful man once said that power is the phenomenon of making change possible. This was the saying of one of the strongest shinobi in history of this world, a man that you will learn about later with me. This one is...'' Naruto fished for the right word in his mind. ''...what I believe to be the most appropriate definition of the term power.'' His left arm twitched as he looked back at his sister who was staring at the map in a daze, her eyes settling in particular on a very special island. He smiled sadly at the same image before the genjutsu disappeared from sight as he let the technique fade.

''What do you think power is Natsuko-chan?'' he turned the question back on her, interested on what she had to say on the issue. Natsuko would have blurted out that it meant being Hokage by now or that it meant defending your loved ones, but now...after hearing all of this.

She didn't know what to think of it anymore...

''It's okay imuoto-chan, you don't have to respond. Do you know what strength is?'' Naruto asked curiously once more, as he put his hands behind his head all the while keeping one eye locked on his sister. Seing her hesitate with her words, Naruto decided to continue his lecture.

''It's the ability to endure and to enforce your beliefs even when adversity sets in. To persevere in the times of hardships when the choice of giving up seems as a much easier option. Our mother and the Uzumaki clan as a whole believed in family values. To us there is no greater thing above family.'' the red head said with pride filling his words ''What is a village?'' he asked rhetorically.

''It is not a group of buildings and pride that came with it. The village are the people and their connections between each other. I believe that one can become truly strong when they have something worth fighting for, be it for those that accept them or love them, even if they curse them. When there is something you will stand for, nothing can defeat you.''

* * *

_"When a person… has something important they want to protect… that's when they can become truly _strong_." _A memory of a clearing filled with flowers, and a soft boy telling her the true meaning of strength entered Natsuko's mind, just to be replaced by another.

_"I want to protect the person important to me… I want to work for that person. I want to fight for that person. I want to make that person's dream come true… That is my dream." _the same boy said as he gazed at her calmly, his eyes as cold as his bloodline but his words heart melting to the young kunoichi.

_"Can you understand? Not having a dream… not being needed by anyone… The pain of _merely being alive_." _Yes she could understand it perfectly allright. It was her life in a couple of words when summarized. Pain gripped the girl's heart as she watched the blood pour down the lines of the young boy's face.

_"I realised the most painful thing… That in this world… _my existence was not needed_."_

* * *

**Play:** Jan Thomas- Get up and dance

Naruto notices the far away look in his sister's eyes as they walked after he had asked her the big question. The red head then moved closer and placed a gentle hand on Natsuko's shoulder, snapping her out of her impromptu reverie as she looked at him, her baby blue eyes gazing directly into his lone cobalt eye.

The two Uzumaki clan members soon came to a slow halt as they reached a small cliff. The cliff overlooked the Eastern Spring Valley near the border of the Land of Fire with the Land of Noodles. It was a large valley filled with wildlife and many springs of fresh water that broke through the earthen ceiling. Moving in front of his younger sibling Naruto crouched down in front of Natsuko. Seeing her confused stare he responded by giving her what was a mixture between a happy smile and a wide confident / cocky grin, stretching his face from side to side, one ear to the other ear.

He was fully aware that he hasn't smiled as wide as he was now in a long... long time.

''Remember this Natsuko. While might controls everything in this world...'' he told her as chakra swirled arround him. Within a few seconds blue strands of energy could be made out as they focussed into a singular point and an incomplete rasengan slowly came to life on his right shoulder, the azure blue shell of pure chakra gradually forming out of the tenketsus in that part of Naruto's body.

Both he and Natsuko looked it, Naruto with his right eye and Natsuko with both of hers while she watched in wonder. She didn't belive that was possible but she was being proved wrong. It was then that Naruto cusped it into the palm of his right hand, and then he brough it between them.

''...without strength you can't protect anyone or anything, let alone yourself.'' more strands of energy started to flow into the compact ball of energy like they were being guided by the winds, some of them coming out of Natsuko's own chakra network. The pinnacle of using chakra in shape manipulation created by the Yondaime Hokage also commonly known as the Rasengan floated up from the palm of Naruto's hand. As it rose the the height when it was placed between Naruto's and Natsuko's heads it began to glow brighter and brighter, electing a soft humming noise as the chakra startled to swirl out of the chakra shell.

''Wow..'' Natsuko said in a daze, not believing her eyes. The next thing surprised her even more. In a shower of a bright blue and white light, it dispersed into sparkles that started to float around Natsuko. The little blonde haired nuke-nin looked utterly amazed and stumped by the display of chakra manipulation her brother just did, truly a magnificent feat on itself. She started to look around herself with a big smile on her face as she began to rotate on the spot, the haze of sparkles spinning with her, weaving around and generally creating one heck of a show.

She started laughing as her brother rose up from his crouch.

''Find something for yourself, something that you deem worth fighting with your life and then...'' she stopped spinning long enough to look at him.''Don't let it go no matter who tries to take it.'' He winked at her before snapping his finger, all of the light vanishing like they were never there.

''Okay'' Natsuko nodded with her head to his words as she held her arms in front of her, the lower arm close to her body while the upper arm was a wee bit distant her hands turned into make shift fists. With a large grin she pushed forward, making contact with the elder Uzumaki with her small fists. Sending the taller sibling a grin that all of Konohagakure no Sato feared, she pushed him away...hard, making him fall on his but, not having expected this from her.

Natsuko startled giggling when he looked at her, covering her mouth with the sleeve of her jacket.

''He-hehey'' Naruto protested as he looked at her. How the heck did she manage to exert enough force to actually push him down to the ground he will never know. Natsuko patted him on the head like he had done to her plenty of times before making a run for it.

''Catch me if you can Onii-chan'' she yelled as she jumped off the cliff and onto one of the trees below it, cushioning her fall with chakra before blasting away.

''Uhm?'' was Naruto's smart answer before his brain kicked back in. A devious grin appeared on his face as he quickly disappeared from his estranged position on the ground, doing his best to catch her without resorting to ridiculous speeds, just keeping it high enough to catch up to her and try to capture her in a headlock.

The ensuing laughter of the two siblings filled the forest around them for a good long while as ''it'' changed ownership several times during the duration of their run.

And so began Naruto's life as a brother.

His new life as teacher and a mentor.

But most importantly, as Uzumaki Natsuko's most important person, her treasured brother, her precious family.

**Believe it!**


	6. The First Glance

**AN: Okay, **I had to redo this chapter from the fresh several times over and then I had a nasty case of an Author's Block, just couldn't transfer my thoughts from my head in a form of words to paper. So be happy with what's here. This is a prologue into the new arc and since I had been sitting on this for about two weeks I've decided to post what was written, since I want to continue working on Asura Effect, which I couldn't do when I'm behind the schedule.

**Funny fact**: me and my friend started a very, very large project on Minecraft. We have begun building as exact as possible replica [within and outside] of the **World War II** U.S. Navy _Iowa_-_class_ Battleship (Fast Attack / Light Battleship ) – the_ U.S.S. Misoury_ [Pre-Refit] and an added harbour. For now we had completed the top deck and make a realistic Bridge as well as gun turrets, and that's not even mentioning the lower decks and the other towers that we will need to fill at a later date. We have managed to make a perfect hull and deck replication with fucking cubes, with, for now four 5 - inch dual Anti Air (AA) guns and nine 16 - inch main guns on three turrets and all the little details that we could replicate with the given objects.

Just one thought!

**MINECRAFT ROCKS! **

NEXT PROJECT for July: **Clone Wars** _Venator_-_class_ Jedi Star Cruiser (Heavy Battlecruiser / Carrier - Battleship Hybrid)

* * *

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

* * *

**ARC II:** Stone Struck Part I

**Ch 6:** The First Glance

Uzumaki Naruto and Uzumaki Natsuko were moving at a rather fast pace as they dashed and hopped from a tree branch to tree branch, moving at speeds that could only be maintained by trained ninja. Laughter, which has up untill just recently kept the air and space between the two young Uzumakis filled with volume was slowly dwindling down as they jumped from one branch to the next in a show of agility and speed, slowly but surely making their way to Naruto's original destination.

And they were only a week late!

The speed at which the two descendants of Rikudo Sennin moved made them a mere blur to the untrained eyes of civilians as they leaped forward with their legs, chakra circulating through their bodies. They were but a fast and rapid show of shadows and inky blackness that filled the air above the ground to any civilian or animal that caught the slightest of glances of them.

While this was, for Natsuko her definite maximum speed at which she could move across the expanses of dirt and forested areas without resolving to using the powerful, corrosive and mind numbing chakra of the Kyuubi no Yoko within her- Since she would prefer to keep the fuzzball sealed inside her gut via a tight Reaper Death Seal; for Naruto this wasn't even one third of his max and/or efficient cruising speed with which he usually traveled.

He could move at a much, much faster pace than the one his sister was setting but rarely did so without a proper cause. He was much faster than any mere run of the mill shinobi was or ever could be, and the red head had the large stamina pools that were needed for prolonged high speed traveling across the Elemental Nations in such a style.

BUT- just because he was intrigued and interested about the possible existence of an 'old' Uzumaki clan temple in the middle of nowhere, far away from any Senju or Uchiha stronghold in the past or a town this day, it didn't mean that he was going to rush there the first chance he got like the devil was after him.

Besides that little piece of mental reasoning, he was also planning on taking a rather wide detour when he decided to head back to the place that he had grown to call home with his little sister. The same place where the man that had grown to be a rather begrudging grandfather figure to him in this life, sometimes lived when not going around the Land of Earth on one of his hermit travels.

For a village that was supposed to be a hard-ass when it concerned outsiders and was known to be the second most military oriented village, if only because Kumo had more ninjas and had taken fewer losses in the previous war, they kept a rather loose leash on their 'weapons', the Jinchuriki of the Yonbi and Gobi.

Roshi had a small two story house in the mountains to the far south of the Village Hidden in the Rocks that he lived at, and this was the place where Naruto grew up when not moving around Tsuchi no Kuni like some traveling merchants. While Naruto himself did have a small number of safehouses scattered across the Elemental Nations- something he had grown used to making over the last three years since the world was no longer at constant war, at this point in time he didn't have that many of them prepared for long term housing, nor did he have them sealed off with chakra masking and suppression tags that usually hid his and Old Man Roshi's chakra signature.

Well..., while the red haired Yonbi Jinchuriki had an almost perfect chakra control over his own powers and could easily suppress it to near indistinguishable levels along with a fairly decent grasp over the powers of the Four Tailed Monkey Sage, Naruto had slight problems with his own chakra circulatory system.

The red haired pseudo-junchuriki had a very, very good chakra control over his regular Uzumaki energies, in fact it was on par with the more skilled medic nins in the world. That was his normal chakra though, and this particular vengeful shinobi had two more chakras inside him.

The second chakra inside him was the Kyuubi's chakra. The crimson red power over destruction running through his tenketsu made him a bright lamp in the dead of the night to any half-decent sensors nins. And so, Naruto had to resort to some extreme and very powerful sealing techniques that were both dangerous and very, very tricky to apply and even harder to execute properly in order to mask this power. The demonic chakra was sealed away inside him in a similar fashion to the way the Kyuubi was sealed inside his younger sibling, pretty much the way that his mother had the mindless beast under lock and key.

Where Natsuko had an experimental jutsu applied, his was a normal Shishō Fūin (_Four Symbols Seal_). The Double Tetragram Seal that he had applied to himself worked wonderfully in containing the power spikes and didn't mess up his chakra control like it would usually, unlike his younger sister who had the chakra of the Kyuubi sealed with the Hakke no Fūin Shiki (_Eight Trigrams Sealing Style_).

While Naruto was not currently aware of this, the experimental seal applied to the younger Uzumaki, while a true piece of artwork and a big accomplishment for someone who was not an Uzumaki, even if the man who designed it was both taught by an Uzumaki (Naruto's and Natsuko's mother Kushina) and did base the seal of an already existing Uzumaki seal, the Four Symbols Seal- the point of it was that the seal was flawed. The idiocy of sealing only the Yang chakra inside Natsuko, and then making the seal force said chakra to integrate into Natsuko's own chakra network in order to expand her reserves only made chakra control an even more difficult task to approach for the young Uzumaki kunoichi.

And while Natsuko already did have near Kage level reserves, a feat unheard of in the shinobi world at her age even for Jinchuriki- the same reserves which were always being replenished at a much faster rate than normal due to the nature of the seal, meaning that it was good for something, she didn't have any control over them.

When executing ninjutsu she was wasting chakra in spades, while Naruto with his much larger reserves- which were about 5 times larger than her own, had a near perfect control. This only went to show the large gap, the tall difference between the level of power of the two of them, and told the red haired shinobi just how much work he and the young kunoichi beside him will have to do.

''Hurry up Onii-chan!'' he was cut off from his running thoughts and complicated plans on the matter of training his younger sister by the very same sister, who shouted rather loudly in order to gain his attention.

Looking up from his last leap as his body continued to jump onto the next tree branch on an autopilot developed by nearly all shinobi, he gazed at the girl who was looking over her shoulder as she raced forward. The wind made her hair flutter behind her like a trashed flag and did it's best to hide the sight of her orange abomination as she stuck her tongue at him in a fit of childishness, most likely guessing what he was thinking about her clothes. She always did seem to know when he was talking down on her prefered choise of attire.

''-your falling behind slow poke, keep up!'' she ordered as she flipped over the next branch without looking and in doing so- nearly kissed the following tree branch when she wasn't looking. Naruto had to fight back the amused chuckles that threatened to spill out of his lungs at the humoral sight of his younger sister flailing her arms about, trying to get her body straight and back into balance.

Eventually he couldn't hold out anymore and burst into a fit of luaghter, earning him a mean glare from the subject of his amusement.

''Baka Onii-chan, what are you laughing at?!'' she demanded like a little spitfire out of him, and Naruto had no qualms about answering her question. Actually he would prefer answering, if only to be even more amused at her reactions. He could see why the man he used to call his older brother loved doing this when he was a kid.

''A certain little squirt with blonde hair and blue eyes. Know any such girls?'' he teased, and then leaned his head to the side dodging the shoe that came out of nowhere at him. Looking back at it as he continued jumping and ignoring the racketing explosion of insults directed at his person, he could see that it was actually a kunai transformed into a shoe. Even when throwing a temper in fit of rage, however small it may have been Natsuko still didn't want to risk hurting him.

''Ha-ha, missed me'' still, Naruto wouldn't miss a chance at teasing the girl.

''ONII-BAKA!''

Naruto smiled as he heard the loud reaction from his baby sister. Jumping higher into the air in order tp avoid the inextinguishable ball of energy that tried to lunge at him with her fist, he smirked. Quickly brining his hands up to form the Tora (_Tiger_) handseal, a ball of water condensed beside him.

With a smirk worthy of a true Uchiha, the tall red head reached forward with his left hand as he grasped the object that solidified out of water tightly. Turning around mid air and landing on a tall branch, he gave his little sister just enough time to look up at him as he sent his own mock attack at her with precision.

''Natsuko-chan, here catch!''

Natsuko heard his words loud and clear behind and above her and responded with a loud 'huh' as she turned around. The rotation of limbs was finished just in time for her to round up at him, only to see her brother's whiskered face turn into water- water that splashed all over her, drenching her form like she had just come out of a shower.

With her hair and clothes now soaking wet, she looked up towards the higher branches and level her brother a glare that only a pissed off Uzumaki female could ever produce. The elder Uzumaki in return only smirked at her tauntingly as he looked down at her from his spot above her, crouching on the taller branch.

He even went so far to waive his right hand at her.

''Hehe, Mizu Bunshin Shibuki no Jutsu (_Water Clone Splash_), success!''

...and the third chakra that Naruto possessed.

...the one chakra that completely changed the sensation of his entire chakra network

...turning the feeling from a cold and precise stab of ice into a burning fear

That one IS...

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

''Okay~~~So it isn't in the middle of nowhere afterall?'' Naruto asked the question out loud as he leaned on the tree beside him with his hand outstretched, acting as a support pillar. For his question of the obvious he received a weak punch to his stomach from the blonde girl beside him.

Natsuko rolled her eyes at his words, having grown used to him stating the obvious at random times. Although she wasn't much better than her brother, she was a female, and there for she was always right...or something. Ayame-neechan's dating tips weren't really all that precise when the ramen stall waitress nagged her ear off about liking boys.

''So what's this?'' she asked her brother as she leaned forward, her body still held up through chakra. The younger Uzumaki was currently attempting to enhance her eyesight by channeling chakra into her eyes, a trick that her brother has told her about. To her such a ninjutsu sounded a little lame, since she wanted something big and flashy, bur she would need to agree with him that it was useful.

Although, next time that he gave her a new trick to learn, she could go without the 10 minute long lecture about being carefull at controlling her chakra.

Pfft, she was to cool to lose her eyesight to such a thing as mere chakra overload -that and she had the already strong healing ability of the Uzumaki clan, the power that was only improved through being born to their mother if what her Onii-chan said was true, and was even further enhanced by being the current Kyuubi Jinchuriki. While she doubted that she could regrow a lost limb, she already knew that she would heal from almost any damage she took and be ready to come back for more the next day.

And any larger injury would be healed by the fuzzball inside her.

''How should I know?'' Naruto responded to her question with his own as he took a better look over this 'camp'. He and Natsuko were standing on one of the higher trees while Naruto used a camouflage technique to keep them concealed from view.

It wasn't on the level that he had once seen the Toad Sannin use, but it was strong and impervious as long as they didn't move around too much or flare their chakra for a jutsu to much. So Natsuko was pretty much useless as long as her control didn't improve if she was hiding with this.

Natsuko's eyebrow twitched. ''I don't know..maybe becouse up untill now you had an answer for everything that I asked.'' she looked up at him with a pointed look. The older child of Kushina scrathed the back of his head with a sheepish expression on his face when seing that look.

''Well, it wasn't really hard to know the answers to your questions?'' Naruto offered, not sure if he was trying to appease her or insult her level of intelligence. By now he had calmed down a little from his destructive thoughts of the Hidden Leaf Village and knew that one of the reasons she was lacking in the brains department was because she didn't like studying.

Tough luck, neither did he. Not before and certainly not now.

''Around you supposed to know everything about anything Onii-san, 'ttebayo?!'' Natsuko asked in a hurry as she turned back to observe the strange camp in front of them. She was itching for a fight and if the first reaction her brother had when seeing this metallic perimeter arround what was one of their clan's structures, then she would be getting a chance to dish out some punishment herself. She could finally put some of the things she had learned from her brother to the test.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

In the ever still adverse and inimical dark world of shinobi, the world belonging to the warriors of the shadows and night, there existed one specific arms race shared by all.

This arms race wasn't centered about who could build a bigger and badder stick to point at the other guy, or a more expensive machine with which to reign fire down range. It wasn't about reaching the empty depth of space either.

No, this race was much different than the arms races of mankind.

It was a race like no other, a simple thing with very ambiguous ends. It was a race about who could create better soldiers. But wait. It wasn't as simple as it seemed. In this dark and ghoulish world, children are trained since their early days to become professional killers. All those stories about great glories of warriors and the honorable defenders of their homes and beliefs were just a ploy, an image to keep appearances.

Becouse in the end, all that ninja are, is contracted killers.

These kids learn how to practice and use the arts of ninjutsu, the main reason why shinobi are so feared in the world. The manipulation of spiritual and physical energies within one's body allows these assassins to become versatile fighters with versatile abilities. Using chakra ninja can produce different results in their favor on the field of battle, ranging from the subtle or most often traumatizing art of Genjutsu- the power to weave and create illusions both intricate and simple, all the way to the most corporeal of the art, Ninjutsu- using chakra either pure or in a corresponding element to inflict physical damage, from summoning forth massive tidal waves to drown the lands in water, to bringing great forest to birth from the earth, erupting like a capiphony of spikes, breathing fire like an impromptu impersonation of draconians and more, oh so much more.

And the most powerful of soldiers in the world almost always belonged or did belong at some point to one of the biggest villages on the continent.

In this mad world, a world that was no stranger to the act of shedding blood and causing death, there existed five main pillars of might.

These widely known and overwhelmingly strong pillars of power cast long shadows of influence that stretched across the lands like towering behemoths in the sky. The shadows stretched far and wide, even going over the official borders established in the past. These borders were either established through massive bloodshed or through the much rarer, but much more civilised ways of conducting business and solving issuers via diplomacy.

Konohagakure no Sato, the Village Hidden in the Leaves is one of such places. In the world of shinobi and kunoichi- ninja, Konohagakure no Sato is known by various names by both enemies and allies alike.

The Village of Wills- a name that could be attributed to their belief in the Will of Fire;

The Pillar of Peace for the historic actions of Shodaime Hokage Senju Hashirama in his quest to bring forth peace to the lands;

The Great Tree as well, through the culture that they have established and the view that everyone is supposed to be a big family. These are just some of the names that could be heard when one talked about the village where the former host to the fearsome Kyuubi Uzumaki Natsuko, lived a lone and pained life.

But what many people tended to forget, both the civilian villagers and the militaristic shinobi alike, when faced with the image of a prosperous Konoha and it's flourishing way of life within the peace loving village, guarded in safety by the massive defensive walls, is that every tree and every plant in this world, from the oldest of the oaks to the youngest of the saplings, that all of them have their roots.

Roots in the ground.

Roots in the past.

Roots are a Foundation.

This was the simple truth that one Danzo Shimura thought and knew on a level far ahead of any other as he sat down in his own comfortable chair within the secured confines of his lowly illuminated office. With his free hand, he reached for the reports about the search for the Kyuubi Jinchuriki, somehow knowing that he will not like what he will be reading.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

AUTHOR RECOMENDS**:**

**Reaching for a Dream **By: Noodlehammer - Adventure/Humor/Romance. The Sandaime waited too long to approach Naruto, who had no interest in becoming Hokage by then. Another dream already rested in his heart, a dream that would drive him much further than anyone would have believed. SealMaster!Naruto Older!NarutoxFem!Kyuubi (Xanna) Rating: M (Has a good deal of Lemons, not for little kiddies)

Word count: 377,127

**Status: Complete**


	7. Unfavorable Scenarios

**ARC II:** Stone Struck Part I

**Ch 7: **Unfavorable Scenarios

* * *

Spying and working as an undercover agent- what does such a dangerous profession entail, what does information gathering, or more commonly known as espionage entail for a man or woman, shinobi or kunoichi? What is spying?

It is a job of obtaining information considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information.

Espionage is inherently clandestine, as it is taken for granted that it is unwelcome even in the world of shinobi by the civilians and the younger generations- the generations that haven't witnessed war and it's atrocities. Masquerading in the light of day with different faces and a rang of emotions that need to cross it, playing with costumes on your personality for appearances sake are just some of the many tricks that the shinobi who work undercover must learn how to use, especially the ones like a certain peace loving shinobi who would follow the path of shadows and self-sacrifice.

When working undercover within a dangerous group or a powerful organization, one should always keep in mind that whoever they are or whoever they were before doesn't matter anymore. Their head must be in the game 100 percent or they run a high risk of loosing such an important part of human anatomy to the chopping block.

It was this exact knowledge about such a dangerous task and how to perform it that has allowed one Uchiha Itachi to make progress within the ranks of the Akatsuki, a large group of S ranked Missing Nin. The 'heartless' murderer and slaughterer of the legendary Uchiha clan was as calm as a cucumber while he stared at the blue tinted face of his partner in this dangerous organization. The two black cloak wearing ninja were sipping green leaves tea while sitting in a small teahouse on the border of Hi no Kuni, heading a discussion about their future plans.

''So Itachi, where do you think the Nine Tails could have gone now that she isn't a part of the Leaf village, hmmm?'' Kisame asked with a tint of excitement in his eyes as he put down his own cup of tea. What, you think just because the shark like man is a dangerous maniac with a penchant to murdering his comrades in gruesome ways that he can't like tea?

''Kisame, we have three years to find her, don't rush.'' Itachi said in his usual monotone voice as he closed his eyes, his very dangerous eyes. His right arm fingers were encircled around the cup holding it firmly while his left arm was used as a base for the cup, holding it from underneath and providing stability in case his hold on it ever wavered.

Kisame 'tcheed' at his partner's words, already well used to the man speaking in very short and to the point sentences. Itachi was never a man of many words, preferring to let his minimal actions- something easily accomplished by his prowess over the dangerous Sharingan and the Mangekyo Sharingan speak for him. The Uchiha dude loved to relax and always choose peace and quite over the destruction and loudness that Kisame enjoyed in battle.

''Bah, we should just capture her now and be done with it. Why let the kid hide when she doesn't have the Sannin's protection.'' Kisame stated as a reminder of their last and fully failed attempt at capturing the blonde haired brat. While both of them were very powerful in their own right and their skills complimented each other perfectly- with Kisame's wide area Suiton ninjutsu and close ranged sportsmanship with his Samehada, and Itachi's deadly visual prowess, high rank genjutsus and his long ranged Katon ninjutsu, they couldn't hope to survive battling a Sannin on Jiraya's level even if they did win in the end by mutual sacrifice. For all the skills he possessed and his large jutsu knowledge that Orochimaru knew, the Snake Sannin was still the weakest of the Three Legendary Sannin- the problem was that he was as slippery as a snake, a fitting image considering his summons. Jiraya was a much more powerful foe to tackle and a realised Sage who had amphibian summons- which could end up negating Kisame's advantage in water.

Itachi turned his head to the side as he let the brief breeze entering the room caress his hair. The Uchiha kin slayer looked through the window on his right as he opened his charcoal black eyes and gazing at a flock of birds in the distance, before he glanced back at his partner ''Patience Kisame'' Itachi chastised in his ever lasting monotone. The undercover agent would prefer to stall for time for as long as he could possibly manage. The self-sacrificial shinobi could only hope that the Akatsuki would wait long enough for him to cause either irreparable damage to them from the inside or untill he could, one day pass on his eyes, his duty and his love for the village onto his younger brother's shoulders.

''Fine, but that means you are paying for my tea!'' Kisame retorted as he pointed a finger at his partner.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Children, the little boys and girls who will one day amount to something are the most innocent of lifeforms that can exist in the world of shinobi. The little organic rays of sunshine were the source of hope for the future in the eyes of the older generations. And as these little humans ran around the village playing ninja and you are it, their loud laughter filling the air with happiness.

They simply played with one another, running and laughing with joy as they spent their young days without a care in the world. This was what was proudly displayed on the on the surface of Konohagakure no Sato to the everyday villager, civilian and shinobi of the village alike. To them and to many outsiders- Konohagakure no Sato was truly a majestic place, and from a single glance at its appearance, it alone could be considered the most appealing of the Five Great Hidden Villages, possibly even more attractive than the main atraction of the Land of Fire, it's capitol city of Agniha.

The atmosphere that this place simply gave off, both the natural that came with it's warm but mild climate and the social air that hung within, as the for the most part pleasant villagers attributed to caused this place to be the subject of many visits from the outside world, making it the only other village besides Sunagakure no Sato that relied on foreign merchants and similiar trade caravans for the cause of bringing in new goods.

The Village Hidden by the Mist, or Kirigakure no Sato was still engrossed in a dangerous civil war fought between the loyalist of Yagura's anti bloodline regime and the rebel forces, most of them being possessors of Kekkai Genkai themselves but also including people who were smarter than sheep.

The Village Hidden in the Stones, or Iwagakure no Sato was still recovering from the losses that they has suffered in the conflict between the Hidden Villages almost two decades prior, and they kept a rigid hold on their own borders against foreigners. Most of the merchants there were kept under surveillance, but besides that the shinobi did nothing to the foreigners besides making them rather anxious- not being able to wait to leave the confines of the earth - fortress village.

And lastly, but certainly not least was the Village Hidden in the Clouds. The Kumogakure no Sato was the most industrialised and technologically advanced village out of the 5 Great Hidden Villages. The village within the mountains was also the most militarized village out of them all and it didn't simply rely on foreign merchants. True that they did allow entrance and trade within the village walls, but all the things that they needed, they have devised a way so that they could be producing them somewhere within the borders of the Land of Lightning.

Konoha saw the merchants as an outside source of revenue and income, and the foreign merchants that needed to travel all the way to the village from where they usually did business through the Land of Fire in order to sale their wares to the villager were more than happy to visit the 'first' Hidden Village. To the numerous influential VIPs that could be found in the expanse of the continents -namely the many daimyos and rich businessmen, the occasional events and festivals within the village such as the renowned Chunin Exams offered the time of their lives. The warm, calm and peace-loving scenery made the village look like a delightful escape from the everyday madness of ruling the lands and leading business, and as such it made them see the place as a delightful one.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

BUT !

Located underneath the lively and prospering Hidden Leaf Village is one massive complex of metal and concrete walls, big struts, platforms and titanic support beams that nearly no one was aware even existed. The very hush-hush and top secret construction of this giant maze of dark halls and fool-leading turns began during the early days of the Nidaime Hokage's reign over the, back then still young but prospering village of Konohagakure no Sato.

Unlike his older brother Senju Hashirama - the Shodaime Hokage and one of the two founders of the Hidden Leaf Village; who was truly a charismatic leader loved by all the villagers and a man who had always held a deep hope and a dreaming belief that the world would one day become a peaceful, Senju Tobirama was not as foolish as to put his hopes on the uncertain future.

The Nidaime Suiton user knew that war would soon rise once again in the shinobi world and believed that if left alone in such times to the woes and throes of war, that the Senju's Will of Fire could be used against the village.

As such, the water controlling legend of Konoha knew that there would be a day when the Village Hidden in the Leaves would be in need of special soldiers even deadlier than normal shinobi- soldiers who would be prepared to abandon the peace forcing ways of the Senju and crush their hearts in order to keep the village and it's prosperity safe.

This was why the Ansatsu Senjutsu Tokushu Butai were born and how came to exist in the Hidden Leaf Village, their foundations having been placed down by the creator and author of the Shinobi Rules of Conduct- a set of written rules that a shinobi must follow in the line of duty.

The Anbu Black Ops are a secretive order of highly skilled ninja that take orders directly from the Hokage. They perform special high-level missions that most shinobi wouldn't be able to pull off- at least not in such an accomplished way as the ANBU, such as assassinations and torture.

The Anbu operatives usually work in teams of four formed to the requirements of the mission, ensuring maximum success while giving them enough mobility and stealth. The shinobi in the Anbu are hand-picked by the Kage, chosen for their individual capabilities and special skills in the fields of shinobi. Age, gender, background or previous rank bear no weight in this decision.

But, for such an order to exist in the shadows of the large trees there would need to be a place for them to operate from. A place where they could train in order to practice and increase their skills, a place for them to live while serving their village from the same shadows that hide them.

In order to do this, the Nidaime Hokage ordered the construction of the sizable underground complex that spans the entirety of the village, containing everything and anything that the Black Ops soldiers would need.

From medical care and armoury, to the archive for mission files and the barracks, places to unwind and places to do their hygiene such as showers and many, many more things that would be needed- all of them were supplied there. It was like a city in on itself, with a spartan atmosphere in mind.

And just as the people who lived in the light above the ground, the villagers who had their village with it's foundations in the earth beneath their feet- their houses and business placed above the same ground, the ANBU Black Ops lived in the shadows with the ground acting as their ceiling since their 'homes' were underground. Beneath the feet of the villagers there is an entire different world, and right now, located even deeper within the same far reached subterranean complex of Konoha there is one man who was not pleased, not at all. To even an emphat or to anyone else, such an emotion would have been hard to read from the stone faced man of his late years. Shrouded by the shadows and sitting in his dark brown leather, and more importantly very comfortable chair- all within the dark confines of his office that was as spartan as one could get, was a man with an aging face- which was currently concealed by the image of a single table lamp.

[camera moves up a little]

The aged man had short brown hair decorating the top of his head and he had bandages wrapped around the right side of his face, including his right eye. His right arm was as useless as his right eye- both of them being concealed by the bandages wrapped around them at this point. The man had a cross shaped scar across his face.

This man's name is Shimura Danzō , one of the Hidden Leaf Village elders and the member of the 'real' village council- although it seemed that this council has lost it's power to civilian ingrates and idiotic clan heads. He was a person more commonly known as the Yami no Shinobi- the head of Root ANBU Black Ops that have been disbanded for several years, at least officially. The truth of the situations was that Root still continued to operate in secret even after the Sandaime Hokage Sarutobi Hiruzen ordered Danzō to disband it after the Uchiha Clan Massacre.

When he was younger, Danzō was a hot-headed and eager ninja with a strong desire to prove himself. However today, Danzō is a very shrewd man who was the epitome of calmness. He is a cold and collected individual who did not allow his emotions to surface, believing them to be useless and a weakness to a shinobi in their duty. Danzō doesn't operate on the surface world as he keeps his intentions and his activities hidden to everyone, even from his closest operatives. Danzō believes that because the ninja world is an ascetic world- that to remain anonymous is a source of pride for a real shinobi. He also believes that by controlling both the surface and underground, one can truly strengthen the village and nation they reside in and for which they fight- mainly by subjugating others to their rule.

However, at this particular piece of time as Danzō read the fine lines of his subordinates reports, even a man such as himself was having troubles in keeping his frustrations in check. They prickled at his nerves, tantalizing his facial muscles to do something! But he will not yield to his frustration.

Letting out a controlled breath of air instead of sighing like when a man in his current position would do, Danzō put down the report as he reached for one of his scrolls located on the left side of his desk with his left hand, before taking the ink brush besides the same stack and spreading the scroll in front of him.

Danzō was not happy with what he had just read.

Not only were his troops failing at the task of finding the Leaf's secret weapon- the Kyuubi jinchūriki and if she resisted, then capturing her by force if necessary, but they were also being killed off by someone. Already his other agents have found at least two separate battlegrounds where his troops were killed.

Although unexpected and certainly not a needed occurence, it was an acceptable loss in Danzō's eyes as those agents were simply cannon fodder of his troops, the rejects that either broke under his training or were too weak to make the cut- no use in killing them of when he could still use some pawns. They were not nearly as skilled as his other forces but they had good teamwork- not really a great thing to see since all of his elites were on the level of Jonin, but the excessive signs of wounds and destruction caused by primarily Lightning style ninjutsu was a concerning issue in his eye.

Lightning style was a primarily dominant element in the biggest rival village to Konohagakure no Sato, Kumogakure no Sato.

Could it mean that Kumogakure no Sato has managed to capture the Kyuubi jinchūriki for themselves in these short few weeks. Danzō knew then and there that if that was the case, then he would need to start preparing the village for a possible war and send out infiltrators to sabotage the Kumo forces.

Kumogakure no Sato was the second strongest village with numerous shinobi both powerful and skilled- all of them trained much harsher than Konoha's. The only saving grace that saved Konoha's genin forces was the fact that a good third of them were all clan members, all of them receiving extra training from their clans. The Hidden Cloud Village possessed the Two Tailed Wraith Cat and the Eight Tailed Octopus tailed beasts in their shinobi forces- giving them a large boon in military power and if the rumors were true, which with his excessive spy network most often was- than their jinchūriki were also perfect jinchūriki, having mastered control over the beasts sealed within them and capable of full tailed beasts possession mode, bringing firepower unimaginable to the forefront of any battle they fought in.

''Maji!'' Danzō commanded with a leveled, no-nonse tone seeping into his gravy voice as he sealed the scroll shut and put it down in front of him on the table, the security seal he put on all of his scrolls already facing forward. This was unacceptable. With the Hokage's foolish loss of the Kyuubi's power and the downgrading of their now stagnating military might, Danzō knew that the village would enter a bind one day.

It was a very good thing that a man such as himself always, no matter the reason or the issue at hand, that he always had contingency plans ready in the back of his head. He prided himself at keeping the Hidden Leaf Village safe and strong through the reigns of three foolish Hokage, but he will have to take some maters further into his hands if he wanted to keep the Hidden Leaf Village the strongest out of the Hidden Villages.

The first backup plan would be the obvious one. It entailed simply finding and then kidnapping another nation's jinchūriki to either brainwash them into complying with his orders and then train them to fight for him and the Leaf Village, or to extract their tailed beast and seal them into a child that he would then make sure would became a loyal and a powerful weapon for him and for the village.

In a world where Tailed Beasts are considered both as a war deterrent and the weapons of mass destruction- in other words army killers, not having a Jinchuriki could end up as a fatal mistake. With the extremely lenient and minimally militarised ways of the Sandaime Hokage, the Yondaime Hokage and now the Godaime Hokage, Konoha isn't ready to fight a war. It's soldiers are too soft hearted and the Academy is too lax in it's courses.

Even their own Jinchuriki, a symbol of military supremacy above the other villages- was considered a laughing stock before this foolish and totally screwed up banishment, all because there wasn't anyone to train the girl. If she was given to him like he had proposed numerous times to Hiruzen, then Danzō was a sure that he could have turned her into what she should have been originally, what every jinchūriki should be.

A weapon to strike at their enemies.

Uzumaki Kushina, the girl's mother and the previous host for the Nine Tailed Fox was considered a powerful enemy by the other Kage who were aware of her existence and status. The kunoichi back then was untouchable for him to take control of due to the heavy monitoring she was kept under by Uzumaki Mito and later Hiruzen, but she was still a far better jinchūriki than her young blonde girl was.

All because he didn't take the girl for his own control.

But them, the big question that came up with this option was whom to choose.

The jinchūriki of the Hidden Sand was out, as the Ichibi's container was reported to be a crazy murdering sociopath who couldn't be tamed, controled and then trained. And it would be almost impossible to reach past that Ultimate Sand Defense of the boy, even with Danzō's own knowledge in fuinjutsu.

The Nibi and the Hachibi jinchūriki were both located within the walls of Kumo, making them pretty much untouchable to his reach. Kumogakure no Sato, unlike his own village realised fully well the importance of Jinchuriki in their forces and kept their own safe, strong and monitored at all times.

The container for the Sanbi was a Kage, albeit a crazy one- with full control over his turtle like tailed beast. The Land of Water was currently embroiled in an all out civil which would both ease and hinder the possibility of infiltration but Danzō knew that nobody within his forces could take on a Kage and a jinchūriki in one package. Such a task would prove hard even for him.

The Yonbi and the Gobi jinchūriki were both likewise seasoned veterans of the Third Great Ninja war. Capturing them would prove rather difficult and he didn't know where they were at the moment.

This only left the Rokubi and the Nanabi.

The older man glanced at another report, a small mental smirk developing inside his head.

A moment later, the Yami no Shinobi was looking at the kneeling figure of one his best Root ANBU members.

But there was still option B to consider...

''Yes, Lord Danzo?''

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Hearing his little sister's words Naruto couldn't help but shake his head in disappointment. The older Uzumaki did well to hide his own frown at Natsuko-chan's naivety. Naruto certainly didn't know everything, and he had honestly hoped that she already knew that anyone claiming to know everything was a large ignoramus with illusions of grandeur. It was a little discerning to Naruto that she was so ignorant to the reality of the world and the asinine humans that lived their lives in it, sneering at your back or laughing at one man's misfortune.

But he couldn't really blame her for it could he?

For as much as she was lonely and sad, ignored and blamed by the illiterate villagers for something that she had no control over back in the Hidden Leaf Village, she was by proxy like any other child still highly sheltered from the reality of the world. The village walls were more than a defense of protection. the wooden barriers were also a symbol that divided the village from the rest of the world, making the problems on the outside the problems of others

Ha! Senju's peace is a ridiculous contradiction...

Stupid Senju and that man's stupid Mokuton. Naruto refused to call any Senju the word Kage. Those people preached about peace but left his clan to die. Naruto was actually a little jealous of Natsuko. Her own little world where everyone could be friends and saved from darkness was a pretty nice place to live in.

Ignorance is a bliss as they say.

And as much as Naruto would prefer deep inside of his heart, that his little whiskered sister could keep such views, he would have to shatter them over time, piece by piece- illusion by illusion. Uzumaki Naruto would be a great older brother to her- just like _that man_ was to him before all of this, but he will have to show her the ugly side of humanity sooner or later. Later would be preffered, but sooner would let her cope with it and learn from experience earlier.

Placing his hand atop Natsuko's head, Naruto ruffled her hair much to her ire. ''Sorry, but no, I don't know everything. But... maybe one day you could be so smart as to know everything, neh?'' Naruto asked as he leaned closer to her ear, speaking in a conspirational like manner. He will break her of these false views one day, but for now he will do his best to keep her innocence shining through like that for as long as he could.

It was the duty of older siblings to watch out for their younger siblings, to keep them safe and happy, well taken care off, and to allow them to live out their childhoods better than they themselves did.

Natsuko, her hair still being under Naruto's ministrations peeked up at her older brother with innocently wide baby blue eyes- filled with disbelief at his words. They quickly settled on the red head's smiling whiskered face and soon enough the girl found herself smiling back at her most precious person.

''I will become smarter than you, you'll see Onii-chan, you'll see dattebayo! And then, you will ask me for advice, believe it!'' Natsuko shouted with conviction in her words and determination shining in her eyes. The look in her eyes promised that she will do it one day- that she will learn and know more than him. The shout, well she momentarily forgot that they were still rather close to the temple and subsequently the intruding 'camp'. She was a loud girl, what can you do.

Naruto chuckled mirthfully at her words, bemused at the cute challenge she had set for herself and her promise. Inwardly, he was very, very glad that he had the decency of forethought concerning her temper and personality, having put up a sound barrier the moment he had deployed the illusion over them.

Natsuko had quite a powerful set of lungs in her, he could only imagine that she was a handful as a child.

His smile quickly dropped at the reminder of what the village took from him.

Another member of his family was taken from him to the Senju's idiotic peacekeeping more like peaceforcing ways, ways that were followed ever so blindly by the monkey and the teme Hokages. Within him, his chakra responded to his emotions. In that moment Naruto was rather glad that he hadn't begun training his sister in their clan techniques yet, for he was sure that she would have turned nauseous if she had sensed it- just thinking about that clan made him boil on the inside. He loathed the Hidden Leaf Village, and he hated the Senju for what their efforts did to his family.

Unlike most clan Kekkai Genkai- Kagura Shindan was more of a clan technique than it is a technique limited to inheritance by blood- a sensory jutsu unlike any other but something that could be taught none the less. It allows the user to find, sense and track individuals through their chakra over vast ranges. Naruto's maximum range when using it is 5 klicks but the tall red head was sure that some people could to it over ten kilometres.

This is done by focusing and opening the mind's eye and one the jutsu's specialities is reading the feel of chakra. For example a skilled enough practitioner could tell if a person is lying from the fluctuations in a person's chakra made from dishonest emotions. Through this skill one can also detect if someone, including themselves is under a genjutsu, but Naruto could do something like that only through physical contact or through the _other _skill he possessed.

But the greatest importance of Kagura Shindan besides the power and range came out of it's very detailed and astute sensing of one's chakra, particularly the more darker and colder chakra shades and the emotions that reside and resonate within an individuals chakra coils at the time.

The sensory technique just came easier to certain people than it did to others. Really anyone with a potent enough Yang chakra could learn how to use the Uzumaki clan techniques.

Well, that was his theory anyway, he had never actually met someone with as potent Yang energies as the Uzumaki and the Senju, not even other Jinchuriki.

But- If he could use Yoton without a Kekkai Genkai for Lava Release itself, then who is to say that somebody couldn't learn how to use the chakra chains. Naruto never believed something was impossible if you set your eyes on the task, and now he had more power and more free time than before- he could use that free time to develop ninjutsu and make the impossible possible.

''Yeah right!'' Naruto scoffed at Natsuko with a well hidden grin plastered across his face, deciding to turn the tables around a little bit, he so enjoyed making Natsuko annoyed and angry, she was just too cute when enraged playfully to not tease.

After listening of her Academy days and her time spent with a certain Uchiha, he had learned the best way to annoy her was to imitate the boy's arrogance. Clearing his throat he imitated the quote ''Hnn..In your dreams _dobe_.'' So he made sure to use the Uchiha kid's words with the exact Uchiha arrogance that made them die out several years ago. Such a weak clan they had become, to be massacred by one child in a single night.

Natsuko's eye twitched rapidly yet again as she punched him in the stomach, with no results other than some chuckles escaping her brother's lips- infuriating her even further.

She seriously hated how he could always get under her skin like that even if it was all in mild fun. She was not the dead-last dammit. Sakura and Ino were rather useless outside the classroom, and she had always seen the pinky as the weakest link out of the three of them.

At last she knew some real jutsus. She knew the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu, the Rasengan and the Kuchiyose no Jutsu, and what did Sakura have. Bunshin no Jutsu and a loud shrieking voice.

Naruto ruffled her hair mirthfully once more, enjoying himself. It proved just how thick skinned Natsuko is if this was the only reaction he could get out of her, but then again she was an Uzumaki.

They loved peace and hated wars, but piss them off and you are in for a world of hurt.

At least they didn't try to set their _ideals_ over other's like a certain other clan.

Naruto will make sure that Natsuko has a good life in the coming years, but for as much as he wanted to be the lovable and kind older brother to Natsuko, one that she could always rely on in when in a pinch or when in the time of need, one that she could always ask for help, this world won't let him take the easy road with her life.

Naruto figured that he would only be hindering his sister like that.

While she does need positive reinforcement from others, Naruto was always a blunt person and she wasn't the most shining of shinobi.

While the red head made sure to be gentle around his little blonde haired sister for the last few weeks, he will have to point out her disadvantages and the low points of her skills in a rather crude and harsh way if he wanted her to learn anything anytime soon.

Naruto will need to give her a hard test and an even harder task which only she will need to and could pass- on her own.

As stated previously, basics were basics and Naruto knew this; no need to pussyfoot around it.

A true teacher and a good master doesn't teach his or her students everything they know. He first gives them the basics of his mastery and then they teach and give them enough skills and help to make their students stand on their own two feet.

Naruto will help her, of that she could be sure off, but Natsuko will need to become her own person.

At least Naruto won't end up feeling to bad by forcing her to do what she believed was impossible, from what he had realised about his cute little sister, impossible and harsh challenges and even harder tasks were where she shined through, gloriously like the sun above them.

With that thought in mind, the male Uzumaki clan member turned back to the sight of this ...camp.


	8. Force Foist

**ARC II:** Stone Struck Part I

**Ch 8:** Force Foist

* * *

Before coming here, Naruto had given his little sister a brief summary- basically an overview of what their clan was like before they were wiped out from the stories he had heard from his mother mostly. The little girl's first comment about the fall of Uzushiogakure no Sato was how she supposed that it was rather similar to the way the Uchiha Clan have been destroyed.

Naruto had laughed in her face at those words, the action earning him a meek glare that was just too cute for him not to tease her about. Oh, how it was a great thing to have a little sister you could tease after all the shit he had gone through. The 'Legendary Uchiha Clan' had been destroyed by a young child in his teen's through a single night, oh how the mighty have fallen. Naruto disdainfully believed that they deserved what was coming to them after what he learned about the clan.

The destruction of the Uzumaki clan and the few other small families that lived in the village by the grace of the clansmen required a concrete alliance of two major villages- those two being Kirigakure no Sato and Kumogakure no Sato, and even then it took one more smaller village, a military power that could be considered a Great Hidden Village on it's own if it weren't for their fall of power in the years prior and the existence of a bigger player on the court in the form of Hidden Leaf: Kusagakure no Sato.

The Uzumaki clan was a very powerful clan back in the days of 'old', and they were more commonly known for two major things amongst other ninja.

The first thing that they were rather famous for within the shinobi clans and across the still warring lands back then was their powerful life force and most often than not their absurdly long lives that the clan members were blessed with. The Uzumaki clan had an even more powerful life force than their distant cousins the Senju clan. The only member of the Senju clan with as powerful life force in the recorded history was a certain 'Sprouty' Senju as Naruto called him, by the name of Hashirama, Senju Hashirama.

Unlike most other shinobi clans of the Warring Clans period, the Uzumaki clan rarely ever actually fought in battles, although they were a force to be reckoned with when they did through the craft of sealing. They were a peaceful clan that kept to themselves, stashed away safely on their island protected by the mighty whirlpools surrounding it from all sides.

When the age of Hidden Villages arose in the ninja world, their people still wanted no stake in wars of any kind and refused to directly aid in the wars, especially considering that it was the Leaf village that had instigated the Second Great Ninja War through their arrogance. They would provide the Hidden Leaf Village with their sealing techniques and even aid in the defense of the village and land, but they will not aid an invasion force assault another country.

Because of their reluctance to be the attacking forces in any feud, the children of the clan were safe from harm. Since they refused to aid in the Senju's feud with the Uchiha out of principle. So they had no reasons to build fortifications and strongholds on the mainland, and the children of the clan didn't need to fear dying at an early age because they were born to a world of shinobi. Although they did build several temples and shrines within the Land of Fire to prove that they did have some influence on the mainland, as well as a gesture of goodwill to the recently created Konohagakure no Sato.

The second and main reason why the Uzumaki clan was famous- and feared was their prodigious speciality in fuinjutsu techniques. The sheer power and infamy that they wielded thanks to their skills in the intricate arts of sealing made them so much feared, that they were in fact attacked with only total annihilation in mind of the invading forces.

The attackers came across the seas with a force of over 40 000 shinobi strong, including the Kinkaku Squad and the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist as the elite units of the force. A veritable sea of shinobi when compared to the small village of less than 2 000 villagers.

By the end of the one day blitz attack on the natural stronghold of the seas, less than 5 000 invaders survived the carnage of the attacking force, barely making it back to their homelands and their respective ninja villages.

It was the single largest military force in the recorded history, a force that was brough down to it's knees by the end of the first day by a single, small village of peace loving people who specialized in the most intricate of ninja arts.

Fuinjutsu- the art of sealing

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It was this unique prowess in the sealing techniques of their clan that had assured that their structures survived even till this day. For many years the various temples and shrines of the Uzumaki clan had been kept a secret thanks to the powers of seals- using elaborate illusions on the surrounding area and strong suggestive impulses through genjutsu.

It also helped that most of them have been tucked away safely in the wilderness and were kept hidden by the lush forest of the Land of Fire. And up untill recently, so too was this place kept hidden by the combination of various sealing arrays and the abundant greenery surrounding the area.

Standing tall on a very thick tree branch right beside his baby sister who seemed to be jumping in her pants was our famous male hero with his arms folded across his chest as his eyes, hidden from his little sister's view by the height difference too in every nook and cranny of this area. Naruto had the same eyes narrowed into a concentrated gaze as he took in the appearance and the layout of the camp surrounding his clan's temple.

From where he and his sister were right now standing, they could easily see the actual temple clearly. Unlike the Uzumaki Clan's Mask Storage Temple which has since the loss of Uzushio fallen into ruin from the wear and tear of time, this shrine was still intact as the day it was built. The wood that made up the temple was coloured a strange mixture between deep dark orange and crimson red colour- which had earned Natsuko's loud cheers when she first saw it. Naruto wasn't sure if the wood was naturally coloured like that or if it was a paint job, but he didn't honestly care, it wasn't like he will spend his time researching it. The tiles and some of the support pillars were brown in colour.

The one thing that stood out to him as odd though, was the small and barely noticable green glow of energy that surrounded the structure. It wasn't made out of chakra or was it made of nature energy, a little something that he had dabbled into during the duration of the last year, but Naruto didn't know what it actually was.

He was sure that his sister didn't see it, her eyes weren't enhanced in the moment like his were nor could she sense the energy itself, something that Naruto could. The power that was radiating from the temple was a small one when compared to his sister and himself, but it also contained a powerful life force and seemed to be restrained. It was contained but livid, hidden but pulsing out into the world and Naruto wondered what the heck it was that the Uzumaki clan had stashed in there. Was it some sort of a sealed creature or perhaps a strange artifact...it wouldn't be the first time he came across one afterall.

Well all of this was Naruto's guess work, but the man knew that while this place seemed normal apart from the camp built arround it, that it certainly wasn't something simple. With his clan it rarely ever was.

Cutting the chakra flow from his two main sensory utensils Naruto turned his head to side just in time to spit some saliva out of his mouth and over the side of the tree quickly, before he snorted. Naruto then crouched down untill he was on an eye level with his sister and brough his two palms up, the fingers intertwining untill they made a single distinct hand seal.

''**Kage Bunshin no Jutsu** / _Shadow Clone Technique_''

A pair of clones shimmered into existence beside him startling the blonde haired Natsuko.

''Ittai!'' the whiskered girl yelped in a girlish tone of voice as she stumbled back a few paces, almost falling down on her own ass from the unexpected shock.

Was she seeing things or was her brother using her own jutsu like it was nothing. Natsuko was sure that she heard Iruka-sensei comment how even seasoned jonin had troubles with that technique.

But the only question that came to her mind was where is the smoke that always accompanied the clone creation? And then she managed to regain her balance.

''Onii-chan!'' she moaned childishly causing the trio of Naruto Onii-chans to look at her oddly, wondering what was she going to say now. Seeing as she had managed to gain their complete attention she looked away from them, acting angered.

''Hai?'' they chorused in unison, causing the original red head to roll his eyes at his doppelgängers. He knew that his clones had a strange personality sometimes, and always liked to freak out other people.

''A little warning next time would be nice!'' she told him, them matter of factly and then narrowed her eyes when she heard one of the clones snicker at her back. Turning her head around quickly, intent on giving the clone a piece of her mind, the untrained Jinchuriki was stopped as the other clone patted her head with a now very familiar gesture.

''Ahhh, so my cute little sister is afraid of a little cloning technique, that's ...unexpected.'' Naruto mused to himself not so silently while rubbing his chin in mock thought. His acting had earned him a string of complains and even a couple curses coming from his blonde haired sister.

Naruto chuckled silently and waved the conversation away, Natsuko looking away like a petulant child that didn't get her way.

His clones had already vanished by now from their spots beside him and were doing their own little thing at the moment. While Naruto would prefer to use his own cloning technique instead of a Senju's jutsu, the big downside of the Blood Clone was that it took up a lot of his own stamina and a fair deal of concentration to perform since he had to tap into his nine tails chakra when using them.

In the end, Shadow clones were much easier jutsu to use then the man's own Blood clones, even if they were rather weak in a fight.

Naruto cut off his musings about clones soon enough as he received the information feedback from the first clone after it dispelled and frowned to himself. This camp was unlike anything he had ever seen in his travels and he had been to the Land of Sky before.

By his educated guessing it looked to be a makeshift outpost that contained several small warehouses and a barracks. His clones spotted a trio of patrols on the other side of the two meter tall metal wall. The perimeter was wide and in the centre Naruto could he could see a strange square platform, just close to the front of the temple.

His clone had also managed to glimpse at the hulking soldiers a little bit better and could say that while they did appear intimidating, that Naruto was not all that impressed with them. The armour they wore was unlike anything he had ever seen and the soldiers looked like they were meant to take as much punishment as they could.

But, they were moving at speeds and with grace like the one would expect from such lumbering giants. The clone had also noted that the warriors- or what Naruto believed to be warriors as they certainly weren't shinobi, also carried the same energy residue like the aura arround the temple but didn't have actual chakra emissions inside them.

This was the most disturbing and confusing part of the whole set up for our red headed hero as Naruto couldn't detect a trace of chakra in these round hulking armours. He could see them, so they were there but couldn't detect an ounce of chakra.

That was impossible...right?

Strange metallic warriors that didn't contain any chakra standing and patrolling outside of an Uzumaki temple. What the hell was going on here. No matter what it actually was, Naruto concluded that it was too dangerous for his sister to get involved in a battle with these hulks as they must be tough. The only way for her to breach that sleek looking armour would be to ram a Rasengan into them, and she was still on a novice level in tactics. It would be hard for her to actually score a hit on them even if they were rather large targets. With his decision made up, Naruto turned his head to the side and extended his hand.

Natsuko felt someone tap her on her right shoulder and perked up on the inside. Feeling even more energetic than before for some serious head cracking she quickly looked back at her brother, an expecting look in her eyes and blurted out the first thing that came to her mind.

''Onii-chan, can we go and fight now?'' she was really eager to fight apparently.

Naruto shook his head, earning a confused look from Natsuko. Seeing it he decided to explain what he really meant. ''No, we aren't going to fight now. I am going in there to look arround a bit and try to see if I can find out what's going on here.''

Naruto then looked at her sternly and said. ''You Natsuko, you stay here alright now?''

The reactions was as he had expected. ''What? Noooo, I wanna go with you.'' she insisted as she gave him a pleading look. Naruto only shook his head and closed his eyes for a brief moment.

''It's too dangerous for you to go, we don't know anything about them.'' Naruto explained, just about to enter his very own overprotective sibling mode that Natsuko will learn to hate untill the day she has grown up.

''Wha? No I can fight. I wanna see what's going on in there'' She insisted indignantly as she took a step closer to her brother and pointed her finger at the camp by the time she finished that sentence.

''You could get hurt fighting them'' Naruto countered with concern visible in his cobalt blue eyes. Natsuko faltered for a brief moment seeing such an emotion in the man's eyes before regaining her passion.

''So could you! I wanna hel-'' she never got to finish her complaint, because Naruto poked her in the forehead with a pair of fingers.

''Ouchie!''

''Stay here and don't fight. Understood?'' Naruto told her with a gentle voice as he stood back up from his crouch and turned around tired of arguing with his sister over the matter, Natsuko glaring at his back the entire time.

She didn't like how her brother was underestimating her own skills not one bit, it reminded her of her time in the Leaf village, when everyone ridiculed her skills and nobody believed in her.

Her glare lessened as she heard his next words, even if they were spoken in a much colder voice than the one she was used to coming from her brother. ''I won't risk loosing you because you wanted to show off Natsuko. STAY HERE and DON'T MOVE!''

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

After puting his foot down in the argument and saying those words, Naruto jumped down from his perch on the top of a branch, right into a silent crouch on the grass. He sparred his surroundings a brief glance, his eyes gliding to his right and then to his left in quick succession. They were now coloured a terrible burning red, the result of a very potent and different chakra from his own working in the mix of his tenketsu.

The red headed Uzumaki then blurred out of the area with an incredible burst of speed, leaving behind no trace of his existence. Appearing right beside the not so tall wall of the base a second later, Naruto looked around the area once again to make sure he wasn't being spotted. Closing his eyes the man concentrated on his still developing sensory skills, trying to sense if there was someone close to him. When the male Uzumaki was happy that nobody would see him doing the next trick, he placed the palm of his hand over the wall and used one of the jutsus his mother had taught him when she was pregnant.

''**Uzumaki ****Fuinjutsu: Shintō Kabe** / _Uzumaki __Sealing Technique: Permeable Wall _'' scripts of black kanji sunk into the wall from his palm, spreading arround the wall quickly and briskly before glowing subtly. With the technique done, Naruto stepped through the wall like it wasn't even there, a smirk on his face as he did so. The metallic structure of green and grey would have appeared to be a simple mirage image in the air to anyone that came across it as Naruto passed through the wall.

Exiting on the other side of the wall, the pseudo jinchuriki briefly looked around the area with his own eyes. True that his clones had been inside the base already and that he had their memories but Naruto still prefered to watch through his own senses. Taking a breath the man dashed towards the nearest shadows and melted into them with a use of a camouflage jutsu for reflecting light, the wall materializing behind his back once more.

He skillfully made his way from building to building all the while never letting anyone spot him.

Naruto cut off the flow of chakra from the other source of energy in his body and his eyes turned to cobalt blues once more. Resisting a certain urge in that exact moment he concentrated on the task at hand. He took a good look at his ancestor's temple from where he now stood by peaking around the corner of the metallic structure before grunting to himself silently, having already located the nearest patrol inside the perimeter. It certainly didn't help that there were about 50 of these armoured warriors around, sneaking in the temple could be tricky. He created a few clones and had them try and enter the other buildings in order to find anything interesting ar a clue as to why were these people here.

The base looked even odder on the inside that it did on the outside, with strange angelic motifs spread through the surface of the buildings. The base was made out of metal in complete total at the first glance, with some shards of glass here and there and strange cylinders shooting the same green energy he sensed within the temple into the atmosphere in a thing line, not seen to the naked eye in the distance.

The place was covered with a flourishing mix of colours, the primary one being the stone white and greying ash near the low of the buildings. It also had some purple and bright green colours mixing in the area, with the green being the dominant on the floor.

It also looked very techy.

When the red headed Kyuubi pseudo jinchuriki was sure that nobody had seen him yet, he picked up a sealing tag from his left pouch pocket and quickly scribbled a set of kanji on it with pure chakra, a nice but risky trick he knew. Without the ink it was too unstable- Naruto still wasn't a big expert on the scale of an Uzumaki. Nodding to himself when he was done Naruto leaned back around the structure after waiting for a patrol to pass him by, using the same shadow camouflage jutsu from before.

Pushing chakra into his eyes once again he looked at the soldiers more intently as he applied a subtle genjutsu on a group of people, one that would make people sneeze if it caught on.

Sure, sure laugh your ass off. But Naruto needed to see if his illusionary tag would even work on them and using genjutsu was never his forte- he was more a ninjutsu and close combat ninja than anything.

''Achoo!'' one of the armoured warriors that he had targeted with the genjutsu noised out with a strange synthesised voice. But it was enough for Naruto to know that his little plan would work as he wrapped the tag around the handle of a kunai, and then threw the ninja tool into the middle of the field with pinpoint precision and some chakra running through the point of the weapon.

The SHLICK noise of a kunai embedding into the ground, which was made out of metal gained the hulks immediate attention. In the shadows, Naruto smirked a wide smirk. ''Perfect..the fools won't know what hit them after this!'' Speedily going through all the 4 hand seals that were required to initiate the jutsu Naruto was glad to have copied it from that Kumogakure Jonin.

He called out the name of the technique as the field was enveloped in a bright blinding light.

''**Raikōchū** / _Flash of Light''_

With the technique still on Naruto quickly dashed out of the shadows towards the entrance into the temple, and the soldiers were left out in the field dazed. They wouldn't remember the kunai or any sort of light by the time his chakra faded out of their bodies- which might be a good thing and might not- it would mean that he would have to fight his way out.

But they still had some sort of energy within them and that was enough for illusions to work.

Coming to a sliding halt inside the temple the red head let the foreign chakra fade out of his body. He then quickly moved to the side and hid behind one of the tall dark green coloured support pillars in the first room as he looked around, noticing the many Uzushio symbols on the walls.

Leaning with his back to the support pillar, Naruto brought his right hand up to his mouth and coughed silently- internally snarling at the stupid urge that will be the doom of his one day. After waiting in silence in order to check and make sure that he wasn't heard by the 'intruders' Naruto exhaled a sigh. The red head then moved his right hand away from his mouth and looked at it. A small frown marred his whiskered face as he stared at the patch of blood in his palm, before concentrating and pushing his chakra into action. The blood was then moulded into a small floating orb that could act as a small bullet at a later time, or for any other use that he could think of.

He exhaled another sigh as he mentally spoke to himself. ''_So it has already started- fitting timing I'll tell ya!''_ With that thought Naruto turned his head towards what was obviously a secret underground entrance and walked towards it.

'_Well, no time like the present!'_ He said to himself as he walked down the staircase, wondering what the heck did he just get himself into.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Back on the outside of the base, hidden by the tree tops we can still find one Uzumaki Natsuko sitting down patiently on the tree branch, her baby blue eyes looked on the temple where she saw her brother just make an entrance. It was a cool and flashy entrance!

She was swinging her left leg over the edge of the branch while humming to herself a random tune that had no meaning, all the while doing her very best to follow her big brother's orders and stay still. His words hit a chord with her, no one before him was worried about her safety so she did her best to appease him.

But no matter how much effort she put into sitting still, eventually it would all fail. Why?

Because Natsuko was booreeeeeed. And if you ever lived in the Leaf Village or if you worked at the Shinobi Academy in particular, then you would know that this was never a good thing, as a bored Natsuko was a very dangerous and unpredictable Natsuko which could bring about disastrous results.

And finally after a long antagonizing wait, she reached her breaking point. ''Agh dammit, I can't help it.''

''The wait is killing me'' Natsuko yelled in frustration as she gripped her hair with her hands tightly, thinking over whatever or not she should cut it short soon before she jumped down on the ground and started running towards the base at a speedy pace.

''I'l show Onii-chan that I can be just as good as him'' she told herself as she ran forward with little care for stealth on the outside of the base, intent on taking just a peak inside the Uzumaki temple. What!? She was dying to see how her clan's structures looked like. The little blonde haired girl only wanted to take a small peek, what's the worst that could happen?

Once she reached the strange wall she stopped to take a closer look at it. After her curiosity was sated she looked up and didn't even try to find another entrance, opting to simply jump over the wall with a little application of chakra.

She fell down and landed on what looked like a white metal plating with green crystals in it. Looking arround she was astounded by the strange buildings arround her. It looked like something taken out of those futuristic movies about aliens or something like that.

''WOW! This is so cool!'' she whispered before leaning against the wall of a building and attempted to sneak further into the base. It took her about 5 minutes of sneaking untill she managed to make it to the large courtyard safely, only to groan at the sight of even more several dozen strangely dressed ninja that talked with a funny language.

Didn't these people know that heavy armour like the one they were wearing will only slow them down, even she knew that.

With a shake of her head Natsuko turned her back to them and started planning what little she could. She needed to find a way to enter that temple without being spotted. Easier said than done. But she will prove herself to her brother.

She would have looked around the place a little more in order to try and find something of use if not for the large explosion that rocked the area and sent the strange ninja into a frenzied commotion, several of them shouting out words she didn't understand. Several of them ran past her while she was still hiding, nearly stumbling over her.

But that wasn't what mate her freeze up, no_oo_. It was the direction that the explosion came from. With a sense of dread forming in the bottom of her stomach, she turned around again and peeked around to see the epicenter of the explosion.

The Uzumaki temple.

''ONII-CHAN!'' her distressed shout earned her several stares from the funny ninjas who looked at her briefly before they started to run at her with speeds that would make Sakura very envious.

''Get her!'' one of them shouted, and she had no idea what the hell did he say, only knowing that she was in big trouble right now.

''What is a kid doing here?'' one of them asked as he appeared in front of her and she was forced to back away from her hiding spot. _'Okay maybe they didn't need to worry about speed all that much'- _they were going at her quite fast.

Natsuko yelped in fright ''What the hell?'' as a one of them launched his own HAND at her like some sort of a rocket propelled Kusarigama, the fist flying at her while connected to a chain. It would have taken her head off her shoulders if she didn't dodge at the last second. It connected with a crash as it imbedded itself into the metal place where her head was a moment before.

''Dammit what is going on, where is Onii-chan?'' Natsuko distressedly wondered as she ducked under another one of those hands being launched at her from the other side of the 'street' and turned to look at one of the patrols running at her.

She frowned before placing her hands up into her favorite ninjutsu seal. ''**Kage Bunshin no Jutsu** / _Shadow Clone Technique''_

''Who cares, grab her for the Liege!'' another shouted as 15 clones started to run at them while yelling battle cries, acting as a diversion for Natsuko. The girl created another batch of clones as she flipped over them and sent a kunai with an exploding tag attached to it at the force from the courtyard.

The explosion of fire and metal shrapnel barely ever scratched their armour, and Natsuko tsked to herself before flipping onto a building behind her with a heave of chakra, by now infinitely glad for the torture sessions that her brother called training.

Her clones were being destroyed easily but she was much more mobile that before and it showed as they launched whatever they could at the armour wearing ninjas. Kunai, shuriken and that one little jutsu her brother had taught her. She felt a tick mark develop over her forehead when she saw that the clones were better at the jutsu than she was.

Natsuko put her hands into the same handseal from before once again and called out the name of the jutsu. ''**Kage Bunshin no Jutsu** / _Shadow Clone Technique''_ a single clone formed by her side and she put her hand in front of it. The clone started to help powering up the Rasengan.

It took her several seconds but the destructive jutsu of her _father _soon sprang into glistening life, strangely coloured a little green. Other clones appeared beside her and she nodded at them.

''Boss what now!''

''Idiot isn't it obvious''

''You'r an idiot too then!''

Ignoring her clones and their arguing she was about to jump at these strange bandits, the only name that came up at her since nobody has yet used any ninjutsu on her before she heard a voice behind her, causing her and the eyes of the clones eyes to widen.

She only had a moment of warning before terrible pain erupted inside her and she was blasted across the air forward by an attack from behind.

''**Sonic Pulsar Flare**''

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Author Recommends:

**+Youtube** RWBY AMV - Project: RINGLEADER by Kahiyao

**+Youtube** RWBY AMV - Project: BREAK by Kahiyao

**+Fanfiction **NU:Null Fox

Now, who believes that we should introduce Kenpachi as a measuring unit. How many Kempachi's would Edo Tensei Madara be without the Rinnegan and Susanoo on.

1.2, 1.5, 2...?


	9. Viscount Keefer

AN: Jump to the end of chapter for explanation on the 'characters' and 'attacks'

* * *

**ARC II:** Stone Struck Part I

**Ch 9:** Viscount Keefer

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

_...tha-thunk...tha-thunk...thunk_

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The place wasn't silent. The air wasn't clean. The air wasn't cool on your skin. And the animals, they didn't sing.

- This is how a song writer might have described the situation in that moment. -

XX But we aren't poets now, are we? XX

Let's get on with the show!

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Wooden beams were broken in half and then some while the green coloured stone pillars were toppled down like one might have seen if they ever visited the era during the fall of pantheons in the ancient Greece. Blackened and charred wooden rubble was scattered all over the place without any real connection or pattern.

While the wooden supports rumbled down the large wreckage slope as more and more stuff broke underneath all of the combined weight that was once held up by the very same beams that now threatened to break under the pressure, small orange coloured singes of embers ate away at their structurally unsound shapes like little gnashers. The air that was currently standing in place of the temple prior to the explosion was painted with a nasty coloured ashy grey mist.

Otherwise known as debris smoke.

It was the very same smoke that was slowly billowing to the four winds of the planet as it rose out from the randomly scattered detritus below.

This is all that was left of the once Uzumaki temple.

What was just mere moments ago a beautiful wooden structure of style and tradition built to last for centuries, one that had obviously taken precious time to construct and one that must have been a source of at least some pride in the now near extinct Uzumaki clan due to it's obvious and enthralling clandestine beauty, was now nothing more than a flaming wreckage of wood and stone.

The utterly twisted piles of broken wood groaned silently as pressure quickly built below them and was applied upwards. Then, they were blasted away from the pile of disintegrated material with an explosive force of energy and launched several dozen meters into the air by what appeared to be a human hand made out of corporeal crimson chakra.

If a sensor ninja was present in that moment, then he or she would have detected the cold and sickening feeling that the arm radiated before it was snuffed out, slowly turning into nothing, it's task of freeing it's master now complete.

The wood used for construction of the temple wasn't the only thing that groaned after that, as a human hand made out of flesh and bone latched up to the edge of the new hole, the fingers digging into the hard material and sking attaching itself with chakra to the surface.

With a groan of extreme effort, a hair of red hair rose up from the rubble followed by another hand, revealing eyes colored an unnaturaly crimson red- eyes that were right now glowing with anger and rage. A mere second later and with another small groan of effort, the head was followed closely by the rest of Naruto's battered body that was still surrounded by ominous chakra.

As the man then rolled to the side over his shoulder and arm onto his back to rest, the aura of red chakra that was surrounding him dissolved into the air like it was never there to begin with. The pseudo jinchuriki's eyes quickly turned from their angry crimson coloration into their natural cobalt blues once more.

Then Naruto started to cough up some more blood, nearly choking on his own spit. So he was forced to once again move his aching muscles and roll to the side, electing a couple more pained groans.

The red haired man then took a deep breath as he resisted the urge to hyperventilate like some sick patient in the hospital. His lungs felt like they were on fire, scratch that- his entire body felt as if he was dropped in one of Old Man Roshi's Lava Jutsu- and then just for the hell of it hit with a Lightning Style Jutsu to add on to the pain.

Such was the price of using that power without preparing for the backlash in forefront. To him it felt like he hadn't used that power in such a heavy concentration in forever, which might be true all things considering, and his body was now paying the price. Hhis cells and his special chakra were lashing out as one against him, chiding him with pain- torturing him for his recklessness.

But Naruto didn't scream from the pain, he wouldn't scream dammit.

He was Uzumaki Naruto, he don't scream like no sissy when the going got tough. That man would never give him the end of it in the afterlife.

His teeth were still gnashing from the effort it took to contain his screams though, but he would endure.

He felt foolish and weak- he hated feeling weak, it sickened him and reminded him of his tragic past.

If he could have used that power before without such extreme backlashes then he will just have to find a way use it a little more and adapt to the damage.

As long as Natsuko didn't notice something was wrong then everything would be fine.

But Naruto still felt like crap after a sunny day.

His head was giving him a killer headache and he knew for a fact that his face was covered in blood, some of it were from injuries that he had sustained from battling that strange man who managed to get the drop on him, and some of it were the result of using this power.

''Dammit...'' he groaned as he looked around the destroyed area, feeling a twinge of pity and anger for the destroyed temple he now stood in the centre off.

It was his clan's legacy dammit! And who does that guy think he is calling them thieves and peasants! _'What the hell was with that guy?'_ Shaking his head to get the ringing out of his ears Naruto then concentrated on his chakra and forced it to calm down, and let the powerful rejuvenating properties of his combined Yang and Pseudo Kyuubi Jinchuriki energies heal some of the damage that he had sustained, however faint it could.

When he had finally managed to gather enough strength in his limbs to move it was done in a hurry as his eyes narrowed, an icy cold entering the polls of cobalt. With a grunt of effort he moved forward and started to command his chakra to do his biding.

He was worried he would admit, because the man could sense that his little sister was far closer to him and to the base than she should be right now. Dare say, she was inside the base. He didn't know, his senses were a little out of whack at the moment.

With a little bit more effort on his part, Naruto started to run forward, quickly leaping over the remaining temple wreckage. His right hand reached for a kunai in his leg holster as he decided to move in the direction that the explosions were coming from.

He had a bad feeling about this.

Just as he did all those years ago.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Natsuko had barely managed to contain her screams back as she was hit by the neon green coloured blast of energy from behind. However, her clone's didn't hold back the same as she did in their pain tolerance and cried out in misery the moment the attack hit, before they were dispelled in large puffs of smoke. Her body was blasted away at high speeds and when she finally stopped flying it was due to her hitting the wall of a building.

Hard.

Hard enough to make a dent in the metal at least.

But Uzumaki Natsuko was nothing if not a stubborn and a sturdy kunoichi, she could take and tank the damage that she was receiving in much greater quantities than any other ninja her age could hope to withstand.

Quickly peeling herself out of the wall that she had become a decorative portion of, the whiskered blonde dropped to one knee on to the metal surface of the base and couldn't help but voice out her thoughts on the attack.

''Ughh...What the hell was that?'' Of course, she received no answer to her inquiry, but she did hear metallic footsteps closing in on her position.

Knowing that she had to act and fast, she started mustering up enough chakra to create a small army of clones within her. The golden haired Uzumaki then lifted her head up to show light blue eyes with a small vetrtical slit, eyes filled with determination.

She had to find her brother now!; and these people were keeping her away from him and from accomplishing that.

She'll show them then! Don't mess with her family.

She looked at the man that she could guess was the one responsible for that attack and frowned slightly as she took in his strange dressing, similar to the others but still like nothing she ever expected to see. She didn't recognise the man's clothing at all.

_'Are these people even ninja?'_ she couldn't help but wonder, before shaking such useless thoughts away, they will do her no good now.

The man came to a sudden halt 30 feet away from her position and signalled the other's to stop as well by raising his left hand and then holding it there. He wore white coloured metal armour over a black body suit, the armour itself lacking a lot of protection in many areas that the larger ones wore but obviously ment to provide with greater mobility on the field.

Natsuko felt her head hurt from these words and wanted to groan. Her brother had managed to hammer into her head the need to analyse your foes before engaging them. She still didn't see the point of it. If she can kick their asses who cares about analysing them.

On his feet he had white sabatons- a type of footwear worn my medieval european knights with green tiger stripe markings going from his toes up. Above that he had pure white greaves with poleyns sticking out in front, providing added protection for the knees in case the enemy targeted the joints from the front.

Around his hips he had twin multi platted tassets, once again tinted with a green paint but this time in only two diagonal stripes that curve inwards from the bottom up. A lean and shiny looking breastplate continued this armour and ended with two small and spiked shoulder guards. The last pieces of armour were his green coloured pair of vambraces covering his lower arms and a full headed closed helm, with the only oddity with it being the two horizontal slits so that he could see through them.

Peering into them revealed that his eyes were glowing an eery maroon colour. The outfit was complete with a destroyed green coloured cape that billowed behind him and a sword sheet on his left hip.

''Hey-'' Natsuko cried out as she clenched her hands into fists, keeping them on her sides as she stood up from her crouch. The first thing taught to her by Naruto was to always keep on your feet whenever facing someone in battle, crouch only when you absolutely need to and be prepared to bolt at a moments notice.

''Who the heck are you people'' she demanded out of them, but nobody answered her question angering her even more. Most of the larger hulks were wielding large maces or giant broadswords now and they were staring at her in surprise, most of them intrigued with the sight of a child remaining conscious after their commander's attack landing cleanly on her.

They had full suits of dark grey coloured plated armour which was more on the round side, but they were at least 8 feet tall, most of them were taller than that and had menacing shadows stretching behind them. Their vambraces were much wider than their hands were obviously and could be used as a sort of a launcher weapon, as previously witnessed by Natsuko when she nearly lost her head to a bloody metal hand.

''You hear that men, the girl wants to talk!''

Natsuko felt her anger rise even further when the man in white said something that made the others laugh and nearly snarled at him. The leader of these man then started chuckling in front of her while moving a hand in front of his helm, placing it right in front of where his mouth should be.

It wasn't an 'I am amused by you' or 'You are funny' sort of chuckle. No, it was a full on mocking chuckle that was meant to degrade one verbally without saying a word, the same type of chuckle that the accursed snake Orochimaru used whenever she saw that guy in person.

''What are you doing here?'' Natsuko called out, keeping her chakra alive and boiling within her chakra circulatory system beneath her skin, just ready to be unleashed on them with a quick application of control.

The men only laughed harder as she asked that, and Natsuko was feed up with their mocking. Quickly launching another kunai with an exploding tag attached to it at the man in white, she brought up her hands in the ever familiar hand sign, just in time for the man to deflect the kunai with a throwing knife, the tag exploding above them.

''You don't want to tell me. Fine, then I'l simply beat the answers out of you before finding my Onii-baka.'' she grinned as she saw the man tense at the action with her hands before he started running at her with impressive speeds, his body quick and agile.

''Stop her you bafoons!'' the man shouted at the others and they complied with his barking, but they were too late to stop her.

''I don't care who you are honestly, but I'll beat all of you at once if I need to.'' blue chakra so intense that it was visible to the naked eye exploded out of her body, and the young kunoichi called out the name of her jutsu as the base was bathed in a sea of orange blondes and chakra induced smoke. ''**Tajū Kage Bunshin no Jutsu /**_ Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu_''

**Play: Naruto OST All-Out War**

''Let's go everyone'' Natsuko called out loudly before flipping with a full rotation of her body over a sword lunge from the white coloured knight. Quickly pulling out a kunai from her pouch with her right hand she used the ninja tool to deflect several succeeding slashes from the 'mocking jerk' as she had dubbed him for while she descended to the ground. As soon as her feet connected with the floor she launched herself forward nad tackled the man in white armour midriff, action followed by her slapping a piece of paper on him with intricate squibles on the 'mocking jerk'. Smiling cheekily at the job well done, she substituted herself with a shadow clone just in time for the circle in the middle of the tag to sizzle with sparking flames and an explosion to come alive.

With the power of the explosion the smoke cleared away from the base and the hulks all stopped in their charge. They were all shocked when they found themselves surrounded on all sides by at least 500 clones of Natsuko.

The young jinchuriki had used up over an entire third of her total chakra reserves with that stunt, but the chakra controls that her brother insisted that she did (or he won't teach her any jutsu he knows) were helping her out.

The original pointed down at the field of men from top of one of the buildings and cracked her neck to the side with a 'crack', smiling gleefully at the situation at hand. ''Charge and take 'em down!''

''YeaAAH**HHHH**!'' With a war cry that could rival real armies of trained men, the clones of the whiskered preteen descended upon the hulks who brought their weapons up to bear.

''What the hell is this?'' one of them shouted at the others as the clones engaged them in a rapid taijutsu combination, utilising their smaller frames to get under their swings and guards to deal some damage or slap a surprise present on their thick armour plating.

The clones learned from the mistakes of others and used the confusion of the soldiers and the strange enviroment to their benefit as they started to pummel their way into their ranks little by little, accompanied by explosions arround them. Several clones stopped in their charges to clasps their hands together, no hand seals required just pure concentration. The blue energy called chakra that had then gathered between their palms looked more like an etherial wind of hazy blue than anything else.

''Get clear!'' One of them shouted as the other clones jumped into the air in order to get out of the line of fire.

Then quickly with unison, the clones holding the jutsus pushed their hands forward, palms open and facing the soldiers as they cried out. ''**Fōsuoshi / **_Force Push_'' The blast of energy quickly raced across the field, slamming into several soldiers with power that the original could not reach for an odd reason and pushed the armoured soldiers back, even toppling one over. The rest of the clones nearby quickly took advantage of this and raced towards him after landing on the ground, igniting all the goodies on them at once with dangerous smiles on their faces.

All of them carried a bunch of exploding tags in their pouches since Natsuko herself carried a lot of exploding tags on her. The girl loved big explosions nearly as much as she did ramen and her brother provided her with a means to make it possible. He had made most of them for her himself.

It had earned him a big hug and a cry of ''I love you Onii-chan!''

''What kind of freak is this girl?'' another one shouted amongst the crowd of men as he swung his mace at the clones, dispelling several of them at once before crouching down and covering himself when he saw the fate of the toppled over hulk.

He did it just in time too, as an enormous explosion blasted off where the clones amassed, sending out a strong shockwave to wash over the small field that was more like an alley with two buildings on the sides, destroying and shattering glass and making sparks go haywire in the street.

The clones were all ready for it, but a few got caught in between the large shockwave and the hulks' weapons unfortunately, their fates sealed. The man then grunted roughly as he stood up.

''Stupid kids, take this!'' the man launched his mechanic arm extension at another group of clones, but something interrupted him before his missile could hit it's mark.

''Who the heck do you think you guys are?!'' the man heard the girl with strange powers ask in her own native language just as he turned his head to the side. The girl's fist collided with his helm, denting the metal lightly. The man was dazed for a little from the force of the impact, but shook it off just in time to see the girl jumping away from him. The hulk lashed out with his hand and caught the girl by her foot, before twirling her in the air and slamming her down onto the ground. The girl remained there for a moment before disappearing in a puff of smoke.

The same man was then knocked off his feet and out of his conciousness as the exploding tag that the clone had attached to him earlier blew up with a fiery explosion, sending him flying into a wall on the other end of the street and denting the metal of both the building and the armour of the soldier.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

''**Sonic Pulsar**'' the commanding knight of the garrison that was sent to this land exclaimed with an expression of glee on his face. It was however well hidden under the metal protection of his helmet as he swung his sword in up turning arc, sending out a crescent moon like wave of neon energy at what he believed was the original girl.

The girl looked similar to the monstrous warrior that he had fought bellow the temple earlier, and she was pissing him off royally.

The glee turned into a frown when the girl disappeared into smoke. Hearing something behind him he roared as he swung his sword while turning around on his heel. ''**Sonic Pulsar**'' another crescent moon of energy soared through the air towards his target.

Natsuko smirked as she created a clone in front of her and used it as a make shift spring board. The young jinchuriki jumped over the attack and then bounced off another clone that she created at the same time, shooting straight forward at the 'mocking jerk' with her fist prepared.

The man merely danced around her attempted strike while making a 'tch' noise, bringing his foot up and slamming it around onto her back. The strength of the kick sent the young whiskered girl sailing through the air once again, but she regained her balance quickly and flipped down onto the earth with some grace.

Natsuko skidded to a rough halt as she brought out a few shuriken from her pouch, and then sent them forward in quick succession while she prepared another plan. The shuriken whirled as they rotated through the air, flying towards the man in white armour.

The man knocked them all off course with his sword almost lazily as he gave the girl an 'evil eye'. He muttered something under his helm that she didn't understand before holding his sword on the side.

''You girl are a very good fighter for a mere peasant.'' he told her condensingly and her eye twitched slightly as he called her a peasant. The nerve of this guy!

''Don't underestimate me!'' her clone shouted at the man's ear as it dispelled it's henge of a simple mace on the ground. The man quickly ducked underneath the sloppy punch before punching the clone's lights out and then swinging his sword up, sending another wave of neon green at Natsuko. ''**Sonic Pulsar**''

Natsuko ran forward at the attack making the man wonder if she is crazy before she did something unexpected- she rolled under the attack. The roll was followed by another kunai being sent at the knight in white who ducked under the ninja tool, frowning at her. Just as she finished the roll she stood up and made a hand seal, all the while running at the white knight in shining armour.

''**Kage Bunshin no Jutsu** / _Shadow Clone Jutsu_'' six clones identical to the original materialised around her with consecutive puffs of smoke, all with their kunai drawn out and at the ready. They moved to surround the man and the knight in white glanced around. Scoffing unpleasantly at the sight the man then moved into a defensive posture with his sword held in front of him with his right. With his left hand he made a 'come here' motion.

The group of Uzumaki doppelgängers were more than happy to oblige with his request and moved to engage the man in close quarters combat, not about to give him a chance to use one of his long ranged attacks on them. The original meet the knight head on as some of her clones rushed forward and tried to slid under his guard to place a few tags or to injure his exposed legs with kunai.

Another pair of clones jumped high into air and the two then launched a dozen or so shuriken at the armor clad man. The man blocked Natsuko's punch with his left hand, and then grabbed her own outstretched arm with his free (left) hand.

With a show of agility and strength he then threw her at the incoming shuriken in the air, forcing the two clones to dispell or risk hitting Natsuko. The knight in white then tilted his body to the side and sidestepped a flying axe kick from another clone, before planting his knee into the body of the clone, ignoring the smoke that was formed by the dispelling afterwards.

The man's eyes then widened slightly behind his mask and the man jumped away the moment he heard the by now familiar sound of a sizzling tag near him. The tag exploded and showered him with a little dirt as he flipped midair. Landing about 5 meters from his starting position on his right leg, he smirked under his helmet. With grace that came with experience the man quickly turned on the leg and delivered a reverse roundhouse kick to what he believed to be the final clone's side.

Natsuko glared at the man from her perch on a tree branch where she landed after being thrown at her own clones' attack. Her clones were proving to be mostly useless against this man. They tried their very best to land a hit on the man but the knight in white evaded or blocked everything she threw at him so far.

She wondered where her brother is, but she believed that he was all right. Her Onii-chan was cool and strong, no way that the explosion could kill him. Quickly creating another batch of shadow clones as she jumped back onto the ground, evading another green coloured crescent moon attack, she was about to charge in but halted when the jerk spoke up with his strangely accented voice.

Pointing the sword that he wielded expertly at her, the same sword started to glow with a faint green glow he asked our blonde haired hero his question.

''Tell me mongrel, what is your name!'' he commanded of her with a voice of authority and as a result, all of the Natsukos in front of him sported annoyed tick marks on their heads. This guy!

''Who are you calling a mongrel you jerk?'' she demanded from the man as she waved a hand at him with a very pissed of face.

''Rabble such as you!'' the man in white armour responded coyly as the front of his helm opened up, revealing a young face with slightly pale skin and a faint scar over his nose. ''Now speak!''

''Natsuko, Uzumaki Natsuko. The one who's going to kick your ass so remember it!'' Natsuko said to him as she reached for a kunai in her pouch. All the clones did the same as the original who cursed silently when she realised that she had no more explosive tags on her, the last one being wrapped around this very kunai.

''I doubt it, you are skilled I will admit, but mere grovel such as yourself could never defeat me!'' the whitely armoured man told her with conviction oozing from his voice, a small insulting sneer plastered on his mug even as he praised her skills.

''Who the hell are you then?' Natsuko tried to fish for his name not sure if she was pissed and enraged at his insult or at his overconfidence in himself. She could literally smell the air of arrogance that hung around the man and only wished to wipe that look of his face.

''Very well peasant..'' The knight in white conceited to her demand as the green energy within his sword intensified in brightness, a small ball of energy forming at the tip. ''I shall tell you my name so that when you reach the embrace of god you may tell him who sent you there.''

''Lord Keefer, Viscount of his Holiness, Liege Hakuto''

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

A large armoured warrior stood tall and proud in the shining sun wielding a war hammer in his arms. His armour was mostly intact with a few scrapes here and there, but his helm was currently missing. It showed a bald head of hair and a moustached face with a thin bleeding scar going over his left eye. The eye was closed.

Ignoring the smoke that rose into the air in front of him, the armour clad man slammed his heavy weapon down on the last of the orange wearing clones before it could initiate some sort of explosion. He hated those damn things by now.

''Take this you wench!'' he shouted out loudly as the clone dispelled into white smoke, his face contorted into an expression of pure rage. Putting his hammer down he hissed through gritted teeth as he looked around the area frantically, looking for the original but finding no trace of her nor of their commander. His eye was lost to one of those explosions that the girl's magic created, and he was pissed!

''Where is she. I'm going to rip her heart out'' he asked as the rest of the soldiers approached him slowly. The only visible difference between him and them besides the obvious difference in weaponry- with him wielding a hammer and the others wielding swords and maces, was the fact that he had two green lines going over his chest, marking him as an officer in the Army of the Viscount.

''We don't know. But I think she's fighting Viscount Keefer sir'' a man reported as he walked up to the enraged cyclops. Said man snarled loudly as another bout of pain raced through his skull, making the others back away slightly not looking to become the next punching bag. Taking a deep breath of air that did nothing to appease his anger at the little monster, the wounded officer looked around and frowned, hissing as the action caused him more pain.

Out of a battle force made up out of 84 soldiers commanded by the man in lighter but stronger white armour, Viscount Keefer, only 43 were left standing after this battle. Others were either knocked out cold by the explosions and punches that the girl could throw or were killed. The street was filled with craters of all sized, the metal alloy used in it's creation having melted under the constant barrage of heat and pressure.

All of this was done by a small girl- a mere child and her damned clones.

He turned on the spot and started to lumber forward. The enraged one eyed man would have barked out some orders right then and there to his soldiers, but he never got the chance to do it as a very high pitched sound of many birds screeching and wolves howling pierced the air.

Looking up to one of the buildings from where he sensed the sound coming from he barely had the time to spot a man that looked like he was half dead on his feet. His face was covered with blood and his clothes looked like they were in an explosion not so long ago- which was true.

But his interest was solely caught by the bright blue ball of lightning that was contained within the palm of the man's hand, and the dozens of wolves made out of electricity arching from the hand and running at the survivors with blinding speeds, howling and snarling like the predators that they represent.

''**Raiton: Ōkamimure ****Hashiri no Jutsu** / _Lightning Style: Wolf Pack Running Jutsu''_

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Natsuko flipped backwards several times as she did her very best to evade the quick and succesive barrage of neon green needles that were being launched at her by the Keefer asswipe. Cursing as a couple of them nicked her right arm she launched the kunai in her hand at the man, forcing him to stop his attack or suffer another explosion in the face.

BOOM

Not about to let the man who had annoyed her this greatly prepare another attack she instantly charged forward, blitzing through the small cloud of black smoke with a hand seal already prepared. Decking the man in the face with her feet, she flipped backwards into the air as she called out her jutsu.

''**Kage Bunshin no Jutsu** / _Shadow Clone Jutsu_''

Over 50 clones puffed to life around her as she landed on the ground, some of them appearing behind the barely dazed Viscount. Not even giving him enough time to regain his balance the clones hastened at him, a trio of orange and yellow coloured figures appearing under him with their right hands planted on the ground, supporting them.

''U'' Their legs outstretched into contact, launching the white clan knight into the air.

''Zu'' a pair of clones jumped into the air and punched the man into his stomach.

''Ma'' four more Natsukos appeared under with their bodies upside down and in unison kicked him twice rapidly in the shin, arching him backwards and sending him even higher into the air.

''Ki'' Ten clones launched a hastened ''**Fōsuoshi / **_Force Push_'' at the soaring Viscount, the blue walls of energy slamming into him all at once and making his eyes shut in pain.

The man currently flying higher and higher into the bright blue expanse barely had the time to close his helm before the real Natsuko shimmered into existence above him. The girl rotated twice in mid-air, and at the very apex of his flight slammed her foot down hard enough to leave a dent in his armour. ''Natsuko Rendan'' the man was blasted downwards instantly.

The pompous asshole that is Viscount Keefer held back a gasp of pain at the power behind the kick and concentrated. Deciding to use the speed from this to his advantage he held out his sword. Placing his left hand over the small gem imbedded into his sword, neon green energy enveloped the european blade.

**Play: Naruto OST Naruto Vs Temujin**

''**Gelel Drop**''

The moment his sword made contact with the earth, energy exploded out of the weapon destroying all the clones. The destruction of the small army and washed the field in a gout of smoke. Launching several neon needles into the air the man frowned when he saw no sight of his opponent.

It was then that he heard a sound on his right, the noise not unlike a mixture of churning and whirling of power. A small blue light appeared in the unclearness of the smoke and the Viscount had to act quickly recognizing the sound. The ranking officer of the holy army swung his sword to the side in a wide arc. The action sent out a wide wall of dark green energy to block the killing strike.

_''_**Ascendant**_''_

''**Rasengan** / _Rasengan_''

The compressed sphere of blue power connected with the tip of the sword and with the surface of the shield-like wall of green. The two powerful techniques fought for dominance as Natsuko pushed forward, feeding more chakra into the jutsu. Meanwhile the wall of green grew denser while Keefer stood his ground with gritted teeth, his eyes shining maroon in the smoke that was still present.

For a few seconds it looked like neither move would win. But just then as the ground started to tremble under the released power, a figure clad in red and black appeared above Keefer with his arm cocked back, a maelstrom of shining blue energy held within the palm of his hand.

''Hey Asshole! Did you forgot about me?'' Naruto shouted as he slammed his attack down.

''**Rasengan** / _Rasengan_''

* * *

XXXXXXXXXX

* * *

**The Hulks**: Imagine Elemental Clayman from Yu-Gi-Oh GX but more like an old styled European Knight.

**Viscount Keefer**: Think of Temujin from Naruto Movie Two, but add these changes to his looks.

XXXXXXXXXX

**Gelel Techniques:**

**''Sonic Pulsar Flare'' **To those with Supreme Commander, imagine the attack that belongs to the Aeon Tech 1 Attack Bot.

''**Sonic Pulsar**'' is the same as ''**Sonic Pulsar Flare**'' only smaller in size and quantity. Where the Flare is like a multiwaved pulse of 'energy', this one is a singular blast.

''**Gelel Drop**'' is a big explosion of energy that is sent out of the sword. Imagine when Pain dropped a Bansho Tennin on 6 tailed Naruto who was preparing a bijudama. Just replace red with green.

_''_**Ascendant**_''_ the same thing that happened on Temujin's side in the movie when Naruto and Temujin clashed, only here it's a defensive wall.

XXXXXXXXXX

**Force Push (_Fōsuoshi_) ** C-S rank : The technique was created and developed by Uzumaki Naruto after he failed to make the Rasengan a ranged technique. Unlike the Rasengan whose power relies on containment, this jutsu only needs focus and guidance. Disperses the longer it travels.

[The technique visuals and creation are inspired by the Jedi Knight Satele Shan's use of a concentrated Force Push (Blast) on the Sith during the planet fall video - game trailer of StarWars The Old Republic]

XXXXXXXXXX

**Author Recommends** (the fanfic will be a Naruto 99% of the time)

**+Youtube** Naruto AMV - Runnin by Bat Moro

**+Youtube** Tribute to Naruto - Help Is On The Way by WhiteFang275

**+Fanfiction **The Good Left Undone by Darth Malleus


	10. Slipping Peon

**ARC II:** Stone Struck Part I

**Ch 10:** Slipping Peon

The yellow and orange coloured sun was slowly inching up, rising in the far distance of the horizon. The birds making their nests in the forests and the towns of mankind were chirping away happily to their morning tunes. Across the two fractured and bickering continents of Elemental Nations, various people were slowly waking up and coming to their senses as the world around them stirred to life, rising to morning action with the warmth of the sun.

But as the cycle of life in the world continued, there was one young girl with yellow-ish golden blonde hair and big round baby blue eyes that wasn't all that happy with the coming of the cycle. Her round face still displaying some baby fat sported the cutest three pairs of birthmarks that you will ever find on a child- or a grown person, as such a thing was currently irrelevant, but the small scowl that was displayed on her lips ruined the otherwise perfect picture of 'Kawaines'.

Why would she be frowning. Well the answer to that question is pretty simple. For your see, this young youth was slowly waking up from her much needed restful slumber. Uzumaki Natsuko, who was up untill this point in time lying contently inside the comfortable and cozy sheets of her very own futon, slowly came to her senses. And she had been dreaming such a nice dream.

It was about wining an All- you- can- eat- ramen tournament.

She had just reached the point when she triumphantly stood on top of the tallest pillar decorated with a large golden number for the 1st place. In front of her, thousands of fans cheered her name out loud wildly, some of them even waving large orange flags with ramen bowls decorating the fabric in the air.

The Kyuubi Jinchuriki woke up with an over exagarated groan of agony coming from the depth of her throat. The yellows rays of sunlight from the slowly rising sun spilled through her window impudently with the intent of waking up anyone and everyone within the room.

Unfortunately for our young hero and her poor little self, this meant her as well. The beams of brightness passed by the purple curtains that flanked the windows on the sides, the purple cloths waving lazily in the morning wind, casting a dance of both shadows and light upon her face.

After the fiasco at the temple her brother had upped her training regime. And despite the very annoying fact that her elder brother in a fit of 'meanness' as she called it, forced her to wake up with the rising of the sun every morning over the last two weeks that they were traveling through the Land of Fire towards the Land of Grass and ultimately the Land of Earth, all the while spending their time training and sometimes having a little fun together, like that one stop at the onsen when they rested, a very distinct part of her old and slowly re-emerging brash personality still refused to yield to her uneasiness of the situation that she felt and feared and still matched that of an eight year old child.

In this particular case, it was her immense dislike of the shiny and beaming suns in the mornings.

Even as she slowly and lethalargly tried to crawl her way out of the bed, she was cursing the sun with death threats and promises of eternal damnation for it's abrassive intrusion of her daily hybernation cycle. Glaring at the distant yellow dot over the horizon with a menacing pair of blue eyes she growled like an animal. With her right hand she pushed the chaotic mess of her morning hair behind her ear without much finesse, still looking at the sun with a gaze that could freeze it were the ball of fire close enough.

'_Someday, someday you will rue the day you blasted your annoying rays at my eyes! Rue!'_ The whiskered nuke-nin would have continued her half-insane internal monologue, but an intruding sound caught her deranged attention.

The much amused sounding chuckles coming from her older brother who was standing with his arms crossed over his chest at the door only earned him her ire as she whirled around like a miniature twister, settling her very much annoyed and deadly gaze on her latest sensei.

''Hahahaha, I,-I c-can't hee-elp it, yo-u look, haha, way-y to c..-ute ...like that'' Naruto chortled in an attempt to talk as he laughed at the sight. After his sister showed that she can't follow his instructions he had decided to make her training even more hell, killing her muscles and the will to move every day. Because of that his sister's morning appearance and her reaction to his amusement were even more amusing.

With the way that her blonde hair stuck into all directions bar the one that the hairs were actually supposed to be pointing at, coupled with her face that looked like a twisted mixture of a bestial snarl, an annoyed glare and an embarrassed blush, the girl was a prime source for his entertainment in the mornings.

Oohh who was he kidding. Natsuko was a non-stop source of entertainment for him.

Naruto doubled over his stomach and closed his eyes to keep the tears that wanted to be spilled in, still laughing like a maniac, as if someone had just told him the world's greatest joke a minute ago.

The male Uzumaki's actions, mainly the engrossed way that he was laughing at her expense only served to irritate the female Uzumaki even more, causing her to reach for her trusty weapon with a shining glint in her crazed eyes.

Before the red haired man even knew it, a pillow collided with his body, somehow carrying enough force to launch him out of the room like a football ball during an apex shot. As if moved by the force the doors even closed with a loud bang upon his aerial exit.

''Stupid Onii-baka'' Natsuko mumbled to herself already very much annoyed at the morning while retracting the hand that she had thrown the pillow with. She began to descend back into sleep before her head hit the futon and she sighed.

She groaned lowly upon realising that she won't be able to fall asleep without her face burried into a pillow now that she had thrown the pillow along with her brother out of her room.

With nothing else better to do besides getting up and getting ready for a new day filled with pained training sessions that will leave her bruised and sore, and boring chakra controls that will leave her mind dull, the former Hidden Leaf's Number One, Most Unpredictable Knucklehead Ninja started to put on her daily clothes consisting of a white shirt and the orange abomination, still silently fuming at the sun and the image of her Onii-baka's laughter at her plight in her mind.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

**Reverse Time Skip? 2 weeks prior to the morning**

Naruto did his best to hide the pain that he felt at using even a relatively simple jutsu like the Rasengan in his current condition from being seen on his face. His entire body was aching all over, his cells were protesting like a bunch of unhappy syndicate workers and any movement he actually did was followed by another fresh wave of pain.

But Natsuko wasn't the only stubborn Uzumaki of the lot, and he was a clear proof about that. Amongst the shinobi of Kiri and the many clans of Mizu no Kuni the Uzumaki clan was rather famous for their stubborn determination and their hot headed tempers, amongst other things.

Even to an Uzumaki of highly diluted blood, it still took them a good 120 years to enter the 'golden years' and to calm down their ill-tempers to become the wizened elders that everyone pictures that they should, as a respectable clan all be.

And even then, when they had finally started to age and when their hair started turning white and grey they still held on to that trademark fire in theirs; the fire that was the cause of the clan being filled with hot-heads of various degrees and spunks.

Besides that, let's see you try and survive having an entire building dropped over your head. About that little part, NARUTO was pissed!

So it was not all of that suprising when a predatory grin that could match the grin the Kyuubi would have pulled out at the prospect of killing Madara in ferociousness, erupted over his face at the sight of the Viscount's maroon eyes widening in the shadows behind that protective helm of his for just the fraction of a second that it took for his Rasengan, the whirlpool of power contained within the palm of his hand to make contact with this strangely armoured foe.

The jutsu was an extremely deadly creation even when in its base form, and one of the hardest jutsu to learn. It was a chakra shape control exercise on the highest of degrees, weaponized for it's extreme deadliness. Even without any sort of element added to its make up and when still in it's base form and size it was still more than enough to grind almost anything it touched to dust.

This particular trait was something that Naruto was counting on wholeheartedly when he spotted the warrior, honestly desiring to hear the man scream like a little girl in the face of a giant bear. He was a bit late though as the man that Naruto wanted screaming was about to clash jutsus with his baby sister who was wielding a familiar orb of energy in her hand. The sister who, by the way wasn't supposed to be there, but this gave Naruto the chance to still pay him back for dropping an entire temple on his head.

In his current condition, which wasn't all that well, the best way to do exactly that would be to use the Rasengan. The blue orb of destruction became even more deadlier the more control one had over it. For example if you could pull of more rotations within the shell or add more power while still keeping the structure of the shell stable you could really do all sorts of damage with this short ranged jutsu. One of Naruto's favorite tricks with the Rasengan was using the Rasengan as a directional shaped explosive charge. The highly pressurized explosive force contained within the shell of the Rasengan on itself was a weapon and could be used to blow stuff up. By quickly destabilizing the shape of the sphere on the end that wasn't pointing at you the user could create their very own little explosion.

However before the orb of blue power could connect with the knight in white the man smirked behind his helm, something that Naruto couldn't see so he gave the attack his full power. Bright green energy enveloped Keefer's body and then in an instant the man was gone, disappearing in small vortex of neon green.

Naruto's Rasengan however continued on its set path and before the red haired man could stop his descent it connected with the ground. Blue energy lashed out all around the pseudo jinchuriki, blasting away the much younger Natsuko from the taller Uzumaki just as violently as it did uproot the brown earth beneath them.

The violent force of the explosion sent small pebbles of dirt accompanied with bigger chunks of earth flying out of the crater, creating another smoke screen out of which a person jumped out.

Naruto jumped away from the unstable explosion as quicky as he could in his battered and bruised condition, but not even he could evade it in all of it's entirety. The red haired man received a few more wounds for his failed efforts but landed safely on the ground without much grace with his right leg making contact with the ground first and then followed by his left leg second.

The red head then grimaced as he looked arround the field for any signs of the Viscount. He still wanted to shove a Rasengan down the bastard's throat. But before he could try to spot the knight in white, something small collided with his tall frame, sending a tid bit more pain shooting through his body just as a loud shout of happiness graced his ears.

''Onii-chan! You'r okay.'' Natsuko exclaimed loudly as she practically teleported herself to her brother's side. The small blonde haired jinchuriki then proceeded to hug the life out of the taller man with how tightly she hugged her brother.

Naruto simply grunted as he stood there, taking the pain and keeping silent as to not upset Natsuko like the good older brother that he was. He looked at her eyes which were shining with happyness and smiled lightly.

''Don't worry my little yoko.'' Naruto said as he used his latest nickname. He had decided to amuse himself by trying to find the cutest nickname that would rattle her, and this one he he found a little cute if a bit ironic, considering as to what exactly she contained within that seal of hers, the one that was always visible over her naval.

''It will take more than a building being dropped on my head to kill me'' he said with confidence, the silent '_I hope_' went unsaid.

The girl looked at him intently before noding her head and burrowing her head into his side. The male Uzumaki manoeuvered his left arm arround so that he could hug the smaller blonde who began to chatter vividly. The red head moved his right hand over his aching and broken ribs tentivly, nodding to his little sister's words as she tried to talk his ear out. She was telling him, in spades mind you, about how worried she was about him when she saw the explosion and how she kicked that guy's ass by blowing him up several times. At that Naruto chuckled before it clicked.

Wait! What?

Naruto looked down at her from his height with slightly narrowed eyes, not really sure if he should praise her for how good she fought against the Viscount or should he give her an ear full for not listening to his instructions to stay away.

But when you mention it, he did remember that the man in armour looked much worse for wear than he did when the two of them fought beneath the temple. The armour was filled with small scratches and blast residue, and he was sure that he saw some of that armour dented.

Add to that the small war zone from a few minutes back where Naruto had used his jutsu to kill of the rest of the hulks that were still alive. That was obviously his little sister's work since there wasn't anyone here to take the credit for all that destruction.

Natsuko continued talking about how happy she was that he is safe before her words were cut off when Naruto pushed her away from himself. His right hand quickly moved towards his leg holster and the man grabbed a kunai from it.

The read haired man then briskly brought the kunai up to his right side as he turned around in order to block the descending strike from the Viscount that would have taken his head clean off his shoulders.

''I'll kill you two!'' the man shouted madly as sparks erupted from the clash of steel. The man in armour pressed on harder with his sword as madness entered his shining maroon eyes. Naruto gritted his teeth as he did his best to hold the knight of, trying to keep back the shout of pain that raced through his body when he blocked the strike. Just because he could take the pain didn't mean he liked taking it.

''I think not!'' Naruto retorted simply as he brough his left hand up. His left palm erupted into blue sparks as his chakra concentrated there into a small ball of blue, electricity arching along the appendage as he took in the Viscount and his falling stance. With the quick reaction time of his eyes he could analyse thing much faster than normal shinobi and he could see that the man won't be able to dodge his next attack.

Capitalizing on the opening that he had so generously received from the knight Naruto thrust his hand forward. ''**Raikiri / **_Lightning Blade_''

The lightning covered hand pierced through the strong breastplate armour of the Viscount with relative ease. Naruto brough his right leg up and smashed it into Viscount's face. ''Go to hell you bastard!''

''Onii-chan did you get him?'' Natsuko asked as she trotted up to his side after regaining her senses, but stopped when he placed his hand in front of her. Confused at the blocking of her path, the whiskered blonde looked up to her brother's face which was set into a thin frown, ignoring the receding redness of his eyes.

''Something's not right.'' Naruto stated as he closed his eyes and grimaced. His chakra was fluctuating wildly and his control was shot. Not a good thing since he was trying to sense for the real Viscount with his Kagura Shindan.

''What do you mea-'' he question was answered when the Viscount in front of them blew up with a show of green, taking out some tree's with it. She looked around as she slid into a defensive stance, back to back with Naruto who was standing at the ready, but not in any real stance. The moment Naruto had kicked the man away from him he had sensed that something was wrong with the situation, but he wasn't sure as to what exactly it was, unfamiliar with this 'chakra that isn't chakra'.

The Viscount in front of him was a trap.

CLAP CLAP CLAP

Naruto's head snapped to his left so fast that it could have broken his neck. Looking towards the direction of the temple ruins he found the Viscount sitting on a tree branch almost lazilly while clapping his hands. The most disturbing part about the picture was that there wasn't even a mark on his body. No scratches or singes to show that he had just gone through one hell of a battle with him and Natsuko.

'_How didn't I sense him._' Naruto wondered silently as his eyes narrowed at the knight, just as Natsuko reached for her last few remaining shuriken in her pouch, standing at his side and sending the knight in white a vicious glare._ 'How the hell didn't I SEE him sitting there?'_

''Very good, very good little peasants.'' Keefer said appraisingly as he continued clapping with his hands, not seemingly feeling threatened at being in the sight of the Uzumaki duo. Both Naruto and Natsuko had their fair share of bruises and injuries, and Naruto still had some blood on his body. He had forgotten to clean it with his jutsu but right now the male Uzumaki couldn't care less.

Looking around the field Viscount Keefer grasped his chin in thought. His helm was right now open in full showing of his young face, the guy couldn't be any older than Naruto is.

Naruto turned to face slowly him while keeping his hand planted firmly on Natsuko's shoulder to keep her from charging in. Whoever this guy is, he was very, very dangerous, to dangerous for her to face.

''You two had given me a good work out for such uncivilised people'' Keefer said as he stopped clapping, smiling blandly at them. The man in armour then chuckled, like he had just heard a joke.

''Maybe this continent will offer our Kingdom some challenge when we come back in force.'' Keefer said absent mindedly while Naruto kept silent. His sister however wasn't planning on doing the same.

''What do you want you jerk?'' She asked as her eyes lost the thin slits that they had sported earlier, indicating that any influence the fox tried to assert over her was now gone. Keefer ignored them as he looked down at his lap where a small box was resting. The box held an Uzumaki symbol over it, engraved in fashioned gold and brown, but there was something green that was shining inside it. Naruto could see the seals that were written over it, and the seals were ment to contain something dangerous.

The commanding officer of the small task force looked at Naruto. ''Perhaps one day you could serve in Lord Hakuto's holy army'' His gaze switched to Natsuko.

''And I'm sure that Viscount Urchinow would love to get his hands on the girl when she comes of age.'' He stated like he was offering them a chance of a lifetime and was forced to jump away from the tree branch when a small comet of fire collided with it, exploding violently and scorching the tree that he was sitting on.

''**Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu** / _Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu_''

The Viscount looked towards the duo of Uzumaki siblings. Now he could see that the male was holding his hands up in some sort of hand sign, his right hand in an 'o' shape over his mouth, while the younger girl was looking at the male in surprise. It would seem that she didn't know that he could breathe fire. The man was a powerful caster if he could wield three different elements, and his swordplay was very dangerous, especially when his eyes turned red.

Looking at the man's eyes now the Viscount grinned seeing the rage boiling within those cobalt blues. These peasant's should be happy that he was even insulating that they could have a chance to join Lord Hakuto. But he did not take lightly to being interrupted. Keefer then sneered at the two, his fingers twitching as he narrowed his eyes at the man. ''You dog, you dare interrupt me when I'm ta-''

Naruto used the Tora hand seal as he chanelled his chakra. The result was showned a moment later as he fired his answer at the man's rant. ''**Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu** / _Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu_''

Keefer swung his sword out of its sheath in response ''**Sonic Pulsar Flare**'' a large multy-layered wave of neon green energy raced out of the sword and collided with the oversized ball of flames. The two jutsu exploded sending harsh winds over the field.

Sheathing his sword and placing it back into its sheath Keefer placed his left hand on his hip. ''I see that dogs and wretches such as you can only understand violence.'' He stated disdainfully and leaned his head to the side, several shuriken flying past it with their trademark sounds.

He smirked at them, and just then something rose up in the air behind him, the air around it vibrating with energy. ''Behold the power of civilization.''

''What the heck is that?'' Natsuko asked as she took a step back and Naruto coughed some blood. Dammit his wounds were being more aggravated the more chakra he used in this conflict.

''Don't know'' Naruto said as an answer to her question. The red haired man glared at the Viscount who sneered at them once more, before giving them a mock bow. ''Farewell peasants.''

With that said he jumped backwards into the air and entered the white airship through the port side.

The craft was 4 meters in height and 7 meters in length, and had an artistic touch to it that Naruto knew belonged to no Elemental Nation. The white and green metal was almost identical to the stuff back around the temple that was still smoking from it's destruction.

It looked sleek and reminded Naruto of a hammer-head shark with it's design, but without the fin and the tail. The 'wings' or the head of the craft was sleak and round on the edges. It had a large green coloured glass cockpit in the centre of the head and it had a large entrance that could be closed on both sides of the ship.

Keefer pointed both of his hands at them in some sort of taunt and Naruto gnashed his teeth as he pondered on the best way to kill the man. The craft was going higher and higher into the air while he thought it over. There was no way that he could jump so high in his condition, if he fired his Katon ninjutsu the attack could be evaded at this distance and glancing to his side made him see that Natsuko also looked tired.

The vibrating got louder as the craft began to turn around, the door's clossing quickly.

''Oh no you don't!'' Naruto told himself silently as he ran through a sequence of handseals.

There was no way that he could risk aggravating his injuries and wounds he received in that explosion any further by cutting corners on hand seals. Clasping his hands together with a clap he activated the technique and aimed his fingers at the craft. A halo of pale blue energy spread around his hands before encircling the two palms together.

''**Ranton: Reizā Sākasu** / _Gale Style: Laser Circus_'' Naruto said as an aray of beams shoot out from his hands, startling Natsuko who stared at his hands in wonder. The pale blue/white energy sailed through the air towards the craft and multiplied as it neared the airship, more beams branching out from the original few.

It reached the height of the aircraft as Naruto maneuvered it in the air, mentally commanding it to do what he wanted it to do.

The lasers encircled the ship with a few aerial maneuvers before striking at it all at once from all sides. An explosion occurred and Naruto smirked in success. ''Gotcha!''

The smirk vanished as the explosion subsided, revealing an unharmed aircraft with a bubble of green energy floating around it. This was the shielding that had risen up in defense of the craft.

The aircraft quickly turned around on the spot in the air and aimed what looked like a hollow tube at them, to small to fire any cannonball. But the blue eyes of both of the Uzumakis widened as they looked on, just as the same green energy that the Viscount wielded began to gather in front of the ship.

Naruto who was already familiar with such techniques in chakra already started running through handseals rapidly. That looked way to similar to a Bijudama for his tastes and while the energy levels that he sensed from the small orb that had gathered in front of the ship weren't as high or concetrated as a Tailed Beast Bomb's were, it would certainly do some damage when it connected with it's target.

To bad that the target was them.

With a sound of 'TZIP' the energy shoot forward just as Naruto stopped on the final hand sign.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

And that's the end of ARC II

* * *

**The Aircraft**: Fuse the appearance and artistic design of the Aeon Tech 2 Gunship from Supreme Commander with the Clone Wars LA-AT gunship structure for the 'Troop hold'.

**Author Recommends**

**+Youtube** _Amv - [MEP] What are you waiting for? 720p_ by HeardYouLikeAmvs ▪ NeverEnoughEpicAMVs

**+Youtube** _AMV - Naruto Shippuden - Don't give up_ by carrace123ify

**+Fanfiction **_The Battle Never Ends_ by Kenchi618


	11. On the Road of Life

**AN! **

**NOOO! Kishimoto just gave Yaoi writers even more ammunition with that stunt, the stupid reversed sexy jutsu of his, is that man going nuts? As if Naruto's already unhealthy obsession with Sasuke before wasn't enough, now we have to put up with this? WTF?! I personally think that the female form of Naruko would have made a much better distraction on an adult woman who already gave birth to children (ergo she should have seen naked men and be desynthesised to such sights) and was planning on enslaving the entire world under her rule...wait a minute. **

**She already did that.**

**TWICE!**

**ARC III:** The Stone Codgers

**Ch 11:** On the Road of Life

''Aggggh! I hate this!...Stupid leaf that won't be cut!...Stupid chakra control exercises that are impossible! This is just stupid!'' a female voice raged to nothing in particular as she and her considerably taller companion made their way slowly down a street of a small town near the southwestern border of the Land of Earth. At the current moment Natsuko wasn't one happy camper. It has been three days since they had entered the Land of Earth and traversed over the mountain at ninja speed and it was still raining. The small and rather short girl, due to the lack of diverse and healthy eating habits ranted to nothing but the partially empty air, all the while glaring down heatedly at her own hands with a pair of round baby blue eyes.

She was trying to do her best to ignore the small tucks of water that were constantly hitting her over her head, soaking her body because her brother forgot to buy more rain coats after she blew up the last batch in a training accident involving some paper and chakra conducting ink.

Her two palms were generously open to the world showing that she had a small leaf tucked away safely within the centre of her right palm. The problem with this particular situation at hand was that the leaf in her hands wasn't supposed to remain safe. It was supposed to be sliced to pieces by now.

After her chakra control was deemed to be '_barely sufficient_' by her brother's standards, meaning that she could now, if she concentrated enough walk up the height of a tree while having a single leaf stuck to her forehead and twirling a kunai in one hand. It was much to her irritation that she had wasted all of that time, time that she could have spent learning to use big jutsus just to be able to do something as useless as that, but Naruto would have none of her complaining.

After that was done, her big brother had informed her that she would be doing another menial chakra control exercise for her benefit, saying that she could go and try to pass the first step to learning a new ninjutsu technique. It took the young blonde haired girl all of her will power to restrain herself least she throttled her red haired brother over the head with a pair of log clubs.

The only saving grace in all of this mess with pesky chakra control exercises was that big brother Naruto had promised to teach her another jutsu after she finished this exercise [even if he himself only knew two futon jutsus, not being all that interested in combining wind style with his fighting style]. So now she was here, both her golden head and her orange clothes soaking wet while being to forced to walk under the _lovely_ cover of rain while wearing small weights on her feet so that she trained even while moving, doing the very first step in wind release chakra control exercises and increasing her lower body strength at the same time.

The weights can't be too heavy or they could stunt her growth or even damage her muscles too much, but these ones were special. Let's just call them special for now.

She had to do one thing with her chakra and one thing only.

Cut the leaf clean in half.

''Achoo!'' the whiskered girl sneezed loudly as she tried to concentrate and make her chakra cut. Because of this she almost let the leaf slip out of her grasp and blow away with the picking up winds. But she quickly snatched it back into her grasp hearing a ''Gesundheit'' from her brother.

...What did that even mean? She wondered as she got back to her task at hand.

The air around them was cold and humid, something that while rare was not unheard of in this land- especially since it was raining right now. The Land of Earth was a very barren place unlike the Land of Fire which could be considered a temperate jungle with just how much forestation it actually had. To the shinobi that hail from the Hidden Leaf Village the sight of Tsuchi no Kuni's borders makes them ponder how could anyone live there, because it had a very small number of actual forests within it's borders, most of them at higher altitudes than normal and much smaller in concentration. The country is mostly comprised of desolate, rocky areas that have rocks the size of houses protruding from the ground up, creating some strange terrains and real sights to see. The border of the Land of Earth runs along a rocky mountain range to the west and most of the southern border, blocking normal communication with other countries and forming a natural defense of some sorts. The harsh winds blowing from the northern ocean pass over these mountains most briskly, carrying along with them small rocks from the Land of Earth to the surrounding countries.

This famous natural phenomenon is called Rock Rain.

Speaking of rains….

''...and most importantly this stupid rain!... When will it stop. It has been raining for 4 days straight. When will this end, when?!'' the young girl with sun kissed blonde hair and three pairs of cat like whisker marks on her cheeks, wearing an orange jumpsuit that her brother already tried burning more than once raged to the very thin but certainly not empty air, her sometimes squeaky voice demanding an answer from the winds while she looked up, turning her heated glare away from the 'safe' green leaf in her hands to the gloomy and murky skies above them, trying to intimidate the forces of nature.

She felt much better after getting that particular rant off her chest, but following her words there was a moment of pure silence on the wide street of the Kizaku town when the townsfolk stared at her.

Nothing really dared to make a sound, not the few people wearing very strange choice of clothes walking with their dry heads hidden under the protective embraces of umbrellas, not the constant rain that was splashing on the ground around them nor the winds which were rocking the musical tubes hanging off the rooftops.

The silence was broken by the sound of a young man chuckling to himself in amusement at his sister's hot temper, while his own body was completely dry out in the rain because he was using his chakra as a shield, as if taunting her by his ability to remain unsoked.

And while Natsuko didn't know it yet, Naruto was almost always practicing some sort of chakra control, trying to develop better ways to subdue his own energies even when doing something as simple as traveling through a town. Where many would say better quality than quantity Naruto would say better quality AND quantity.

This one particular technique was something that he had picked up fairly recent and was really glad to have it down by now, the amusement he got out of his sister's fuming was worth it in the end. By using his chakra he created a small force field around his body that would stop raindrops and if he was lucky enough or got it down good enough thrown projectiles such as kunai, shuriken and even fireballs.

''This isn't funny Onii-chan, don't laugh at me!'' Natsuko hissed like a snake when she turned her angry gaze to her left, the place beside her where her big brother was walking in tow like a wizened sensei along with his young and foolish student.

''Sure thing Natsu-chan, whatever you say.'' Naruto responded lightly in a sing-song voice, not even trying to hide his considerable amusement from leaking into his voice.

He waved away her words with a nonchalance of a man that would not care if the world ended in that moment as long as he could read his book. It should be noted that the book was a certain orange book with a girl and a guy following after the girl on the cover of the book.

His words and the way he dismissed her made the already annoyed Natsuko develop a fresh and large tick mark over her head, her eyes narrowing on the cover of the book filled with smut as she clenched her fists. The leaf somehow managed to stay in one piece and uncrumpled.

Why, oh why did every single teacher she ever trained and was taught under have to be a pervert of some sorts. Kakashi was a pervert, Ebisu-sensei was a closet pervert, Jiraya was the writer of those books and a super pervert and she was sure that even Iruka was a pervert. Her Sexy Jutsu, which is what she hoped to look like one day always did manage to knock him out. Now she found out that her big brother Naruto too was a pervert.

Was she doomed to train under perverts. Why?

What was so great about that book anyway? It was all just some smut and some strange scenes?

-antheunis011: [Wait a few years little Natsuko, you'll understand it then *starts giggling perversely*]

The young and utterly hot headed Kyuubi Jinchuriki had nearly blown a gasket of epic proportions when she saw her big brother reading **that** book this morning- while she was forced to run a full sprint for over two hours around the camp in numerous circles, in the rain while wearing some small plates that are actually chakra weights and a pair of suppressor tags on her legs.

This is the sort of work outs that Natsuko was forced to endure every single morning for three or four weeks after the large fiasco at the Uzumaki Shrine where she totally kicked but with her clones.

It was in her elder brother Naruto's words to make her tire easier and force her muscles to strengthen naturally, without her using chakra to increase her speed and overall strength.

Some sort of stamina and strength exercise he says.

Natsuko knew he was only doing it as a sort of punishment for her disobeying him three weeks ago. And while she was forced to run like she was undergoing the beautiful Green Beast treatment he sometimes giggled to himself off on the side while resting in the shade of the tree, albeit quietly as the red head recalled the memories of his and Kayla's adventures in the bedroom from the scenes in the book.

And now big brother Naruto was giggling silently again walking down the street while she was working her ass off doing nothing but this annoyingly hard chakra control exercise, all the while being soaked to the bone like a fish straight out from the sea. Life isn't fair.

If she could actually get a cold then she was sure that she would have been sneezing like a machine on a roll by now. Getting irritated with the situation the young blonde acted swiftly.

With sudden body movements that would have surprised most genin that knew her back in the Hidden Leaf Village, Natsuko tried her very best to kick that acursed book out of his hands with a quick and precise spinning kick, only for her older brother to duck down under the swung with an obvious effort to make it look lazy and push her away with his free hand.

This of course along with her overextended kick nearly made her fall down face flat in the mud. It that happened she really would have been annoyed.

Turning on her standing leg and regaining her balance with as much grace as she could, Natsuko huffed before sending her sensei an annoyed look as she crossed her hands over her small chest. Standing back up to his full height, a dry Naruto waged his finger at her chidingly, his face looking far too terribly smug for such a situation.

''Now~~~ Now Natsu-chan, don't be like that... That isn't very nice of you now is it?'' the red head asked her jokingly while chastising her like she was some sort of a small child, doing his very best performance in the annoying older sibling part of their interaction.

But she was not a child, she's 12 and now nearly 13 [note the sarcasm with this!]. She was a real and by now experienced ninja [in her dreams] who had beaten The Ichibi's taily and sand covered ass by herself [and with the help of her summons but that still counts as her win!].

She was learning new techniques and skills that when you take a long and hard look at them, will teach and enable her how to do her best in order to kill other people, as much as she hated that part of the job it was a real part of the ninja world. While before she did understand that death is a part of their line of work, she had a lot of disillusions about their fate and always imagined going out with glory. The first time she actually saw the truth of the world was with Zabuza and Haku back in the Land of Waves, and it had only really hit home when Naruto sat down and explained how the world worked in detail.

**Flashback **

_Natsuko and Naruto had just stopped for the day to set up camp in the woods after an entire day of traveling at ninja speed across the forest- which was a tiring effort even for Natsuko, a stamina freak when she was being forced to balance a leaf on her forehead at the same time while jumping and dodging kunai attacks from the red head all the while. _

_The Uzumaki duo had left the Land of Fire yesterday and were now theoretically safe from prosecution by the Hidden Leaf Village outside the country borders. Not that they were in much danger if they remained in the country to begin with. At his full strength and when he isn't holding back there was a very small number of people in the Leaf village that could take Naruto one on one, or even team on one and hope to survive. At most the number was a single digit only. Teamwork can only help you so much against immeasurable odds. _

_Speaking of... the older and tougher male Uzumaki was still rather miffed that Natsuko had disobeyed his orders to stay away from the temple and the enemy base to remain safe and out of harms way. So here he was now laying the hurt down, having concluded that this was the only way for her to learn anything. _

_More precisely he was fighting her with taijutsu only, but without Naruto holding much of his strength or speed back, forcing his sister to give it her best or receive some very painful injuries for her lack of effort and skill. _

_Taijutsu was the basis of combat after all and what was the best way for Natsuko to learn how to fight, a person who learned by doing and acting other than to force her to fight stronger, faster and more skilled opponents than she herself is. _

_Naruto had even forbidden her the usage of Shadow Clones, taking away a big part of her battle strategy._

_Having already set up a cloaking barrier that will hide them from sight and mask their chakra signatures just in case a shinobi stumbled upon them, Naruto was cooking them some rabbit soup for dinner, having sent out a clone to fetch them some dinner before setting up the camo. _

_And while he prepared and gave her the food he decided to break some of his little sister's illusions about ninja and the ninja world. The red head had to start somehow. So here they were._

_"B-b-but ninja are heroes. They save the day, and rescue people from danger and guard them from bandits and…" Natsuko tried and protested weakly as she heard her older brother's opinion on the ninja world. Wasn't he saying just a month ago that real ninja grow stronger when they have something to protect. This was really confusing for the young blonde. _

_Naruto snorted and interrupted his little sister, deciding to start breaking her views of the world before they reached the Land of Earth. True that ninja gain strength when protecting something precious to them, like let's say a clan or their loved one, but they are also hired killers that kill for the bread on their tables. The two of them were currently headed to Old Man Roshi's place down at the base of the border mountains, one of the safest places for his little sister to train her control over the Nine Tailed Demon Fox, how little she actually get didn't matter. _

_This was something that he couldn't help her with. He could subdue the fox if it got out of hand with his Kekkai Genkai but it would do his sister no good in the long run if she got everything handed to her on a silver platter. _

_Back to the matter at hand... "Ninja are murderers plain and simple. We are thieves, we are professional assassins, swords for hire, hired thugs no better than that Gato and his men that you talked about. It was just that you were hired to protect the customer while they were hired to kill the client. Ninja's jobs are never done out of sympathy and kindness.'' The red head said this and then dared to glance at his little sister out of a corner of his eye. The older Uzumaki felt his heart sting a bit from the broken look on her face, but he knew that he had to do this and that he had to do this now. Iwagakure shinobi are very much different from Konoha shinobi and while they spent their time in the Land of Earth they had a high chance of meeting them._

_Hell Naruto was know to most of them, being their fuinjutsu specialist and pretty much their exclusive shinobi mercenary for hire. If he didn't despise the thought of a hidden village so much because of the Hidden Leaf Village he would have most likely joined Iwagakure no Sato already as a shinobi. The village was nice once you got past the animosity that foreigners are most often subjugated to. Iwagakure no Sato is a proud village. _

_"Do you honestly think that Konoha, the same village that kicked you out by the way..'' he pointed his spatula at her slashed headband that she insisted on keeping for a reason she won't tell him yet before dipping it back into the soup ''..doesn't take jobs to kill innocent people? Do you think that Konoha is the Holy Land of Goodness? ''_

_''Bu-'' Natsuko tried to interject, without avail as Naruto continued his little lecture without acknowledging her speaking a word. _

_''Ninja, no matter the village they are from are just killers for hire, killers with super powers but killers none the less. Why do you think that the Uzumaki clan almost never went to the mainland and stayed isolated on their island cut of from the world and the many conflicts that rose up there. Ninja aren't heroes, and thinking that they are is almost as childish and pathetic as suplemating the source of your grief and misery for an innocent child by isolating her and ignoring her existence. I will not spend my time preparing you for this harsh world if you will keep a hold on to such fantasies.'' Naruto asserted his words severely with a dead serious look crossing his whiskered face as he forced Natsuko to look him in the eyes. _

_Natsuko looked away from her brother and her meal, it was a very painful thing to swallow even after all that she had been through in the last 6 months. She had seen what remained of that street near the temple and could guess just how many people died by her hands there before Naruto cleaned it up with his Lightning Style. _

_She had been taught many things by now but not once when she was in the Ninja Academy had anyone given her such a lesson, not even Iruka-sensei. _

_It was all jokes there, making light of this cold reality, and making it seem like they could become some legendary heroes of Konoha, but where such people are Konoha's heroes, at another place they are the most infamous of villains hated by all the people living there. _

_Well that's a little bit over exaggerated but it's a close comparison. She realised that even as she was being told all of this, how everyone made light of the truth. Because right now, the plain truth shoved in her face made her doubt her choices._

_"It's like an ice cold ocean smashing you repeatedly with all its stormy might. The truth can be hard to swallow and your human instructors were fucking morons.'' Naruto pressed on wanting to get this over with. This world was as fucked up now as it was before the founding of the ninja villages, maybe it was even worse and he didn't see any change coming anytime soon. As long as people could use ninjutsu wars will happen. As long as people loved and as long as the concept of mine existed, there will be war. The honest truth was undeniable and he wondered how did that man come to terms with it after Naruto had... the red head shook his head, chasing away those thoughts. It wasn't healthy to reminiscinsize of the past like that._

_But really, hearing the things that she had been told during her education at the Ninja Academy in the Hidden Leaf Village made him want to smash his face in the trees, most likely making dents before even being harmed by it. _

_It was all a large brainwashing machine to make obedient little kids who won't doubt their village while thinking that they are making the world a better place. He had seen what was taught in Iwagakure no Sato before and could say that while the basis was the same- of making loyal soldiers, Iwagakure didn't paint black with yellow and green.''They didn't train any of you like potential soldiers, but just like some children playing games. Then they send you out… half cocked and thinking that you are ready to handle the world...'' he trailed off as the night continued to get darker and darker_.

**Flashback end**

But while she accepted his words at face value that doesn't mean that she will need to become a killer and a mass murderor. If she needs to, she will prove her brother that the world could change and he could be and is wrong. Natsuko will do her best to change the ninja system if that's what it takes to make her brother happy and she will fight to protect him. He is her family and that is the only thing that should matter to her now.

Back to the present. Natsuko really hated it when Naruto acted like that.

But a small part of her, inside her still a little bleeding heart also loved the way he acted arround her.

She didn't know why though and was confused because of this. A confused Natsuko reverted back to an irritated and angry Natsuko at the best of times.

''Then tell me what am I doing wrong already. I don't want to waste my time doing this exercise all day long!'' Natsuko snapped at him irritatedly as her old temped flared back to life with a vengeance.

Yep that's right ladies and gents, Natsuko had gotten her spunk back by now. Almost two months ago she was a nasty mess of negative emotions after she had been banished from the Hidden Leaf Village. Add to that the emotional surprise and weight of meeting her older brother, the same older brother who would have taken care of her had he had not gotten tricked by the Sandaime Hokage to leave the village and then finding out that she was the daughter of the Yondaime Hokage, the very same man who had sealed the Kyuubi inside her and then left her alone in the world and to finding out that her mother was the previous prison of the Nine Tailed Demon Fox, to then spending time with and constantly fearing that her brother might get angry with her and leave her.

Yep as you can guess, her emotions were running on an all time high by then.

Now she could finally unwind being sure that her brother was here to stay with her, and most often the target of her venting was the red head himself.

Naruto didn't stop walking forward hearing that sentence but he did nearly face plant at her brashness. Did she really just say what he thought she had said. Entire day!

Regaining his composure the due to the turning of a corner on their left Naruto looked at his baby sister like she had just grown a pair of horns out of her hair. A ridiculous thought right?

''Yoouuu don't realise just hard this exercise is, do you?'' Uzumaki Naruto curiously asked his little sister Uzumaki Natsuko as he put down his book and folded the cover. Looking down at the yellow haired and whisker cheeked copy of his mother Kushina's face, Naruto was faced with a confused look belonging to the orange abomination wearing prankster. ''Huh?''

''Hnnn..maybe I should explain it a little better?'' he mused out loud as he sealed his book back into the sealing pocket dimension in his pants before taking a cough to begin his explanation.

Natsuko could only sigh as she stared at her older brother with a resigned look slowly crossing her face, she really hated theory.

Onii-chan was up untill now rather blunt when pointing out and telling her of her weaknesses but whenever he got started to explain ninjutsu theory with his words instead of actions she could barely get the jist of it.

But she was getting better at it, slowly. She would still do much better with ramen as an explanation tool though. She loved ramen.

Ramen.

Naruto clapped his hands together as they started to ascend back up another mountain. He started his explanation of elemental ninjutsu, his specialty. ''Very well, as I've told you before, Wind Style is all about...''

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

**Author Recommends**

**+Youtube** _Amv Race Redline Tailenders '' Hurry Love ''_ By BiovolkVK

**+Youtube** _Naruto AMV - Destroy Yourself _by Leo Lenox

**+Fanfiction **_Why Kakashi Should Never Read Out Loud_ by lord of the land of fire

* * *

**Hey guys: I have a question. I have played a multitude of sandbox games (Including the Assasins Creed which was okay for me, fun but meh. It's gotten over repetitive. The ships are a nice addition though) and I have to say that only 4 really stood out to me. Which are your all time favs. Here are mine from top to bottom:**

GTA: San Andreas - You guys know that this thing was revolutionary when it came out. I must have played this game 40 times from start to finish and could tell you the best way to go about anything to this day. It is still one of the most entartaining games, filled with content and whatnot. The cheat codes are also fun. If I actually hat GTA V It might be on this list at this spot just becouse it is in San Andreas.

Just Cause 2 - I played the first instalment and it was fun, but the controls were shity and traveling was hard especially if you somehow wound up in the middle of nowhere. The 2 is full of explosions and reckless moments, and you can attach the grappling hook to anything for easy travel and blow up a lot of stuff. The dual wielding of any combination of weapons is fun. Did I mention the explosions.

Red Dead Redemption - While my favorite of the lot is Red Dead, the ammount of extra content in GTA and JC put them above. This game is my favorite still GTA- type game and it's awesome. The graphics engine on both the vanila and the zombie is still one of the best I have ever seen. It has a nice choice of weaponry and really gives you the feeling of immersion into the wild west. And the controls are fine once you understand them. This guy was supposed to walk naturaly and his body movements were made for slow walk, which makes sense when you take a look at the world and the tows in which you can interact- it's a game for pleasure not for rapid reposiotioning on the battlefield. No need to run there.

The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim - Dovakhiin! Need I say more about this game.


	12. Elemental Nations Bullet-in

**ARC III:** The Stone Codgers

**Ch 12:** Elemental Nations Bullet-in

The Village Hidden by the Sound is the personal hidden village of one devious and crafty Snake Sannin Orochimaru, a member of the world renowned Densetsu no Sannin trio that have earned their titles by surviving the battle against Hanzo the Salamander.

However, unlike the selling and admitably well crafted marketing spiel that the pale skinned snake summoner had managed to successfully sell to the leader of The Village Hidden by the Sands, the golden dust controlling Kazekage all those months ago when the two of them had entered an alliance to raise the Village Hidden by the Leaves to the ground by joining forces, The Village Hidden by the Sound is not what one would call..a safe haven.

Orochimaru had described his village as a place where skilled ninja could find their purpose in life without being beholden to the fickle and warmongering priorities of the Five Great Shinobi Countries.

In reality, Otogakure no Sato is not really a hidden shinobi village at all, but what it really is, is a giant laboratory composed of various hideouts and bases scattered throughout the Land of Sound and spread across other countries that make up the world of ninja.

Not only that, but the place was in actuality really founded for the express purpose of collecting ninja for the snake summoning shinobi's hideous and morally unethical experiments in his zealous quest to learn all ninja techniques in this world and in his pursuit to attain true immortality.

Located somewhere on the main landmass that makes up the western part of the Elemental Nations, is a place which is generously safe from intrusions of foreign shinobi that are snooping around every now and then. The underground base is located in an area where it is very well hidden and not to mention absurdly hard to find and gain access to even to Oto shinobi. Built into and deep under the mountain with the entrance facing the rising sun is one of the Snake Sannin's numerous hideouts.

Just like most of such bases built by the man with a taste for little boys, the interior design of the base is what many would consider...unique. The long walls of the hallways that stretch out for miles are adorned with snake motifs, the embedded sights of the man's summons covering the walls. The base is built to act like a maze and a particularly deadly death trap in case somebody does manage to infiltrate it. The evenly spaced out and always lit candles add a spooky and chiseling air of hysteria to the place. The sight and the composure would have unsettled most normal shinobi who aren't actively pursuing the man, but have rather stumbled across the place on a mission.

Poor bastards.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It was inside one of these estranged hallways that we find two people moving, passing. A guy who was walking at a steady but brisk pace through the darkness occasionally breached by candle light and another man who was walking in front of the guy firstly mentioned. The man was of pale skin and black hair, who would occasionally comment something pertaining one of their most recent research subjects, the guy behind him nodding as he pushed his glasses up. Turning around a corner before continuing onwards with their journey of a 327 steps, the one behind the obviously more confidant and powerful man seemed to remember something. It was something that was not very important to his 'employer' but it was something that was definitely interesting and it would surely catch his master's attention, and maybe a bit of the snake-esque man's amusement.

The guy wore a dark purple shirt with a high collar that hid his neck, a white under-shirt, dark purple finger less gloves with armoured plates on the back of the hand that he rarely took off, a white cloth waistband worn at an angle around his waist [go figure], dark purple pants, blue sandals and a shuriken holster on his right leg. The guy has a pair onyx eyes framed by a pair of black rimmed circular glasses and a head of ash-grey hair which is kept in a pony tail that extends to his upper back, with his bangs framing either side of his forehead that had a musical note emboldened into the metal surface of it.

Clearing his throat to catch the man's attention who only turned his head a little to the side so that Kabuto could be in his sights, the purple clothes wearing medic nin spoke out. The guy told his master the most recent of developments that he had seen in the intelligence reports, the same ones that he had received from their last spy still operating in the Hidden Leaf Village.

For an unknown reason all the other spies that the Snake Sannin had planted into the midst of Konoha shinobi and tasked them with observing the village for anything useful have been uprooted out of the ninja force within a short month of the failed combined Suna and Oto invasion of Konohagakure no Sato.

A sly smirk truly befitting his chosen summons crossed Orochimaru's lips as the traitorous Sannin chuckled at the news, his head shaking in apparent amusement. ''Kukuku... are you sure about this Kabuto?'' The Sannin glanced at his most loyal and trusted subordinate as he asked for confirmation on the news with a voice of abstraction as the duo entered a new room.

The room was a rather large one with dark blue metal walls and it smelled of antiseptics. It was filled with expensive laboratory equipment of all sorts that was normally used in their genetic testings. The due approached one of the computers, the snake Sannin's right hand spreading over the keyboard.

Kabuto nodded as he pushed his glasses up his nose with his left hand, in the mean time producing the report about the situation from..somewhere on his person. The glasses wearing medic looked at the paper in his hands, studying it with a pair of keen eyes that truly did not need the glasses to see. He kept them as a sentimental thing.''Yes.''

Something caught his eye once more and the guy summed that portion of the report up. ''...In fact it would seem that the Nine Tails brat had been banished a little over 2 months ago by the anonymous decision of the Village Clan Heads and the Godaime Hokage Tsunade-san.'' the ash-grey haired medic said as a thought crossed his mind mischievously after saying that out loud. '_Hmm..__Right after Sasuke-kun joined us'_

The snake Sannin chuckled in his typical fashion while typing some commands into the computer, thinking just how interesting this little piece of information truly was.

Without even looking up from the screen a smirk crossed his face while he spoke the next words to his follower in a teasing manner. ''Are you still sore about loosing to the girl when she hit you with that Rasengan Kabuto-kun? Ku Ku Ku I didn't take you for such a person.''

The Oto spy's only reaction to his master's words was a single, small shudder that travelled down his spine in the span of a single second. Kabuto could still feel phantom pains whenever he remembered that jutsu and the damage that it did to his body.

The blonde haired loudmouth that shouldn't have become a ninja in his original opinion had picked up a truly magnificent and powerful technique for her small arsenal of jutsu. The sheer complexity that took to create or learn such a jutsu astounded Kabuto after hearing his master lamenting about the Yondaime Hokage's creation upon their retreat.

_'Not even my _**In'yu Shōmetsu / **_Yin Healing Wound Destruction could repair the damage caused by the Rasengan. To think that such a loudmouth ninja and a waste of potential could learn it. This world continues to astound me sometimes'_ the purple clad genin thought with a small frown before smirking to himself. '_But, Sasuke is still better than Natsuko could ever hope to become. And next time she won't surprise me like that.'_

''No Lord Orochimaru, not at all.''

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Back in the Village Hidden in the Leaves the news of Uzumaki Natsuko's banishment had truly been a shocking revelation to the public and the opinions on the matter varied from a villager to villager, shinobi to shinobi and civilian to civilian. A small number of people who were still the die hard extremist on the opinion that the beast and the host were one and the same wanted to spend the following week out drinking and celebrating across the streets of Konoha, all to toast and to say good riddance to the despicable demon. They would have been much happier if the demon was killed during a public execution but beggars can't be chosers.

Thankfully their numbers were on the very small side, with barely a couple dozen in a village of 20 thousand sharing the idea and plans. Those that did have found themselves beaten to a pulp by a certain man who is spending two weeks in prison. His skills were irreplaceable in and of the field so if the price for his further cooperation was for him to bash some skulls in, the higher ups of the village were ready to turn a blind eye to the incident with minor penalty, much to the changrin of the people who had ended up in the hospital.

A much, much larger portion of the villagers, with most of them being civilians with no connections to the ninja world were rather apathetic to the news, maybe even a bit happy on the inside but didn't care to express it. These people have always wondered why did the Sandaime Hokage keep the kid around and endanger them all during his reign. I mean what if the seal fails and the beast was let loose. Who would save them then. Their loyalty to the newest Hokage had grown in leaps, for she had secured their safety.

The last big group of people were the people who were very angry with the events that have transpired under their noses.

Most of them were active ninja and retired shinobi who have made their honest opinions known to their shinobi friends, who themselves shared the sentiments. This had started a military wide question and a fear of 'Who's next?'. I mean just look at the probably the single most loyal kunoichi of the Leaf village and what happened to her. The girl ran around, shouting and proclaiming to all that she will become the next Hokage. And with the way she had been going so far some people hoped for it to be true. I mean just look at her track record.

Pretty much all the ninja that were either of chunin rank or above knew of the young jinchuriki and of her sizable accomplishments in her short service as an active shinobi to Konohagakure no Sato.

Surviving an encounter with Momochi Zabuza, the feared Demon of the Mist on her first C rank mission and actually coming on top against a member of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist was no easy feat, even if the jonin sensei was responsible for the kill. Konoha's shinobi force ran on the buddy system afterall.

Then came her well known fight with the young Hyuuga prodigy by the name of Hyuuga Neji during the Chunin exams, an event witnessed by nearly everyone in the village, where the whiskered blonde had shown that she can tame the abundant power of the Nine Tailed Demon Fox and fight using the Kyuubi's chakra without loosing her mind or destroying the seal.

Following the dual invasion of Oto and Suna came the Kyuubi jinchuriki's victory over the one tailed tanuki, The Ichibi or Shukaku- in a one on one fight that had flattened a good portion of the forest. Her contribution as the village's shield and defender against the ultimate weapon of Suna had saved the Hidden Leaf Village a lot of potential casualties and collateral damage on that day. There was no way of telling just how much damage the biju could have done if it had breached the defensive walls of the village, but seeing just how much damage the snake summons did most people didn't want to know. Those who were active shinobi during the Kyuubi incident remember the destructive power of the beasts very well.

And the rumor has it that the golden haired girl had helped in stopping a surprise attack from Iwa before going on a mission to retrieve the Godaime Hokage.

So yeah, many shinobi were rather pissed at the clan council at the moment. Even more ninja were worried about the girl taking vengeance against the village that had banished her in the future.

With the feats that she had accomplished by now and the speed at which she had shown her development in the ninja arts in just 7 months it would not take long for her to become a dangerous ninja, one that could become a plight of the village on the scale of the Snake Sannin one day.

But nobody was as shocked or outraged more than the various clan heirs that went with her to class in the Shinobi Academy or the few people that she was close to.

The Godaime Hokage's apprentice Kato Shizune had literally spat in her master's face before taking her leave, cracking the door as the jonin level kunoichi slammed them behind her. The ANBU team stationed in the office at the time did nothing to retaliate or apprehend the woman due to her actions and had just waited for the Hokage to regain her senses.

Most of them had known the whiskered kid personally or at least in passing is some way, shape or form. Heck, some of them had even kept watch over the little ball of sunshine when she was a kid, her pranks kept them on their toes constantly and never failed to amuse them.

That and they still feared of what would have Hatake Kakashi done if the word got out that they acted in Godaime's favour in such a scenario. Shizune hadn't been seen near the Hokage tower ever since.

Umino Iruka didn't know what to do, but before he could reach a real decision on the matter the word of his former friend and teammate Mizuki breaking out of The Konoha Strict Correctional Facility reached the village. The Konoha Strict Correctional Facility is a place where shinobi who have committed serious crimes work off their debt to society. In the past, this place used to be called the Special Ninja Felony Prison.

The Ichirakus, the only pseudo- family besides Umino Iruka that Natsuko had while in the village, had flat out refused to serve the Godaime Hokage in her own village when the busty blonde visited for some ramen.

Haruno Sakura in particular had taken the news rather bad, much worse than any of her classmates who were furious with their parents. She was broken to the point that she had nearly quit her position as a kunoichi.

Her team was destroyed, her sensei was in jail because he defended his students image, her love had left the village and joined up with Orochimaru, the same man who had killed the Sandaime Hokage in order to attain enough power to exact vengeance on his brother, and her last teammate was banished not a week later following Sasuke's defection.

She and Natsuko might not have been the best of friends during the Academy days or even when they were teammates in Squad 7, but their relationship was slowly being mended after Sakura showed actual interest in training.

At the moment the pink haired medic in training was considering leaving the village to go search for both of her teammates, not caring if she was proclaimed a nuke nin or not. She wasn't going to remain as Tsunade's apprentice after this.

On the last note, Shimura Danzo, the leader of NE ANBU and one of the village elders was doing his best to keep the foolish clan heads and the incompetent Hokage from announcing the banishment of their resident jinchuriki to the other nations. He was buying time while his operatives kept searching for the girl.

The wielder of Shisui's eye had already deployed several spies into Kumogakure no Sato in hopes of finding their wayward weapon. With the might of the Kyuubi in his grasp and under his command, he could bring order and stability to the ninja world.

With Konoha standing on the top as the strongest hidden village in the Elemental Nations!

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

In the southern part of Tsuchi no Kuni a pair of shinobi grinned as they stopped in front of a large mountain home. They had walked up the winding path that had a nice scenery overlooking a canyon for over 8 hours and the rain had just finished about an hour ago.

The two story house wasn't oversized by any means, not at all. The front of the house had a porch with a table and seats for two the door's had a large window on either side that were the kitchen and the living room respectively.

The upper flor was mostly used for the small library and as a makeshift office- why would Roshi need an office was completely un-asked of him. There was also a station for the messenger pigeons in case the Tsuchikage needed to contact Roshi or Naruto.

The place was 2 days away from Iwagakure no Sato at ninja speed and only a few hours at Onooki's flight speed. Around the two story home ran a small rock fence that ended with wooden doors that reached up to Naruto's hip.

The home was built out of fine wood and surrounded by a small forests rich with wildlife, being one of the few heavily forested areas in Tsuchi no Kuni.

A small blue stream ran in the distance that could be seen from where the Uzumaki duo stood and further behind that laid a crystal clear lake which was only an hour walk away from here. On one side, located between the forest and the house was a small garden for vegetable produce, mostly potatoes with a few onions that Roshi would add to his food.

There was a fair amount of grass around the home that covered the rocky approach, not enough to make it seem like the rock is an ivadive element to the sight but enough to make it look like a natural growth.

All in all, this place just screamed homey.

''Well here we are Natsuko-chan. Rishi-jiji's home.'' Naruto said with a hint of nostalgia as he looked around in search for the Monkey Sage's Jinchuriki. He had sent one of his summons a week ago to warn Roshi that he was coming and that he was bringing a _guest_.

Now where could that grumpy man be?

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

**Author Recommends**

**+Youtube** Date A Live 〖AMV〗 - The World Calling 〖HD〗 by 93Raiketsun

**+Youtube** Star Wars The Clone Wars - Frontline by JoaoMorais2

**+Fanfiction: **_Retake:__Taking the Road not Taken_ by KumoNoHito


End file.
